Covid 19 pandemic has triggered a dramatic and rapid change in human behavior and their business models. With e-commerce, online retail is expanding at a truly breathtaking rate. This is a global phenomenon for many sales numbers.

The E-commerce landscape is on the way to various changes. With social buying and online ordering, it is becoming increasingly common these days. Some of the leading online retailers have risen sharply during a lockdown. Whereas, some fail to reach their regular target.

Covid 19 has impacted almost everywhere. The effects of it are visible in everyone’s economic and social life. We have some interesting data that verify the impact of Covid-19 on the e-commerce business. This is all based on transactional data and actual e-commerce sales across the world.

Also Read: How Business Culture Changed After Covid-19?

Impact of COVID-19 on Global eCommerce Retail Business’s Traffic (2019-2020)

E-commerce retail businesses are going through an extraordinary traffic increment between January 2019 to June 2020. The online business these days is outperforming, even Christmas season traffic is on top.

It is surprising, but online sites have produced around 22 billion visits in June 2020 up from 16.07 billion worldwide visits in January 2020. This is obviously due to the worldwide Covid pandemic which has constrained a huge number of individuals to remain at home to stop the spread of the infection.

Because we were restricted from going out during the lockdown, many people find it feasible to shop online. Customers are preferring going on the web to obtain regular things, for example, food, basic hygiene products, baby care products, cosmetics, etc.

Image Source: Statista

Results of Coronavirus’s Impact on Global Online Traffic (October 2020)

The worldwide Covid pandemic is influencing customer conduct around the world. In October 2020, online traffic in the grocery store expanded by 34.8 percent in comparison with the reference period in January 2020. Whereas, the online visits in the travel industry area decreased by 43.7 percent during 2020.

Image Source: Statista.com

Although, the sales growth realities are different across different categories. So let’s see the two faces of Covid 19; I mean, good and bad impact on e-commerce business.

Good Impact of Covid 19 in eCommerce Business

1. Grocery E-commerce Market

Basic food items have seen an enormous jump in the 2nd week of March. Retailers or customers went online to look for the merchandise they required yet weren’t accessible at their neighborhood shop.

As per retail4growth.com, the online grocery market created almost $180.32 billion in 2018 and it is anticipated to support at a CAGR of 20.63% because of the developing interest for online food supplies among purchasers.

Also as per the report of Walmart Grocery, Shipt, and Instacart have seen a significant development of 124.0%, 460.0%, and 218.0% in normal day-by-day downloads. According to Rakuten Intelligence, some big e-commerce grocery shops like Amazon fresh the sales of products are constantly increasing.

2. Healthcare E-commerce Market

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a huge interest in medical products was seen worldwide. The demand for medical equipment & accessories like gloves, facemasks, thermometers, and PPTkit was quickly rising.

Moreover, medical care web-based business organizations have seen a development in Covid internet shopping, similar to medical care and sterilizing items. Huge drugstore organizations are without a doubt overwhelming on the web look through like Riteaid, TrustCare, Walgreens, and others.

As indicated by the Nielson report, medical products and medical services online deals are expanding by over 300.0%.

GoodRx, a telemedicine startup, is the third most visited site that permits individuals to follow solutions, drug limits, and costs on prescriptions. The following is the chart indicating the expansion in the site traffic of the medical services online business site because of this pandemic.

Online medical sites are drawing in numerous clients across the globe and this is the ideal chance to put resources online.

Source: Bigcommerce

3. Books and Literature E-commerce Market

Indeed, it is expected that the books and writing section have seen the most noteworthy spike in the market. As many individuals from ages between 25 to 70 years as of now have the tendency for perusing. However, there is a flood in interest during this pandemic. Further, there is an incline in the interest for book audio and video with Scribd and digital books as well.

For example, Biju’s is currently a favorite selection of st who are remaining at home and learning. The books and writing selling online business sites have seen a decent measure of raise in their site traffic during this pandemic.

As indicated by Statista, online selling books and digital classroom materials have an almost 16% increment in the global traffic from January 2020 to March 2020. It was around 1.5 billion visits in March 2020 and 1.34 billion visits in January 2020.

Due to the Covid pandemic, we all are compelled to remain at home. Students and people who want to learn something are reaching out to online websites for their needs.

4. Food and Beverage E-commerce Market

The demand for food and drink items due to Covid in the United States as of March 2020 was touching the peak as people had to stay at home.

The factual report shows that the U.S. e-commerce retail sales for food and beverages have shown an increase in revenue from 2017 to 2024. In 2019, revenue from food and beverage sales was collected at around 10.74 billion U.S. dollars. Whereas, the figure will change and is expected to increase almost 7.1 percent.

5. Digital Streaming

Love for digital streaming proceeds, with the greater part of the globe. According to WebIndex’s respondents saying that they’re actually streaming more movies and TV shows over the web today than they did toward the beginning of 2020.

Also, more than 4 out of 10 web clients state that they’re actually investing more energy utilizing web-based media, while 1 out of 7 respondents state that they’re proceeding to make and transfer more video content.

The popular streaming channels like Netflix, Amazon Prime videos, Zee5 were generating more revenue than the TV shows.

6. Fashion and Apparel E-commerce Market

Remaining at home can’t keep fashionista and shopaholic individuals a long way from pondering design and relinquishing their shopping propensities. Furthermore, large brands like Zara, H&M have begun their enormous deals and limited mission to drive shopper requests.

Almost 2.6 billion individuals visit design sites, for example, Wildberries, Nike, Macy’s, and H and M in a day.

As indicated by globe newswire report, the worldwide style web-based business market has created almost $25.0 billion income in 2019, and it is anticipated to reach $485.62 billion with a CAGR of 8.59% toward the finish of 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has prompted different limitation including far off working and social separating.

With the presentation of new advances like AI and ML, blockchain in the design site improvement, the style online business market is seeing a huge development.

Bad Impact of Covid 19 on the eCommerce Sector

1. Travel and Tourists eCommerce Market

As indicated by the Mobility Market Outlook on COVID-19, the income for the travel industry in Italy will be the most influenced by the pandemic, diminishing from 20.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2019 to about 11.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2020.

Changes in the shopping behavior due to Covid-19

  • 21% of increments in the online orders while comparing from the previous year (March 2019- March 2020).
  • In 3,000 people, 41% of people find online shopping is better than visiting a shop.
  • With the massive increase in page views of e-commerce websites, there is almost a 25% rising in number from the previous year. (From March 2019 to March 2020). The main reason found for this was, the people were consuming time to search for new products. The post-purchase interactions between the seller and buyer have increased in April 2020. There is about a 54% increment in an email interaction from buyers who have shown their interest in sharing their views or queries in the shopping journey.
  • Prior to a pandemic, buyers’ priorities while purchasing was calculated as quality (48%), brand (24%), and price (47%). Now, it has shifted to availability (49%), quality (34%), and price (36%).

Wrapping UP!

Covin 19 is a global pandemic that has affected us all. It has tragically taken numerous thousands of lives and it has also caused us major disruptions in the way we live, we earn.

Although governments have put in place, quarantines, and social distancing practices in order to keep us safe. But as a result of this great lockdown, nearly 3 billion people are in their homes and not performing any economic activity. The collapse in economic activity is remarkable.

According to major institutions like the IMF in the OECD, this is going to cause a major global recession and major economies are going to be shrinking by 6% for the remainder of 2020. The impact of this is going to have businesses of all sizes.

Whether it is global businesses, small businesses, medium-sized businesses, SME’s, all are facing the impact of deadly viruses. Yet, many of them have shut down already. But, at last, I would suggest to keep the fighting spirit on, don’t fall back. Though it is a tough time we can face it with our inner strength.

FAQ’s

Q1: Which e-commerce industry gets the boost after Covid19?

A1: Some of the e-commerce market that has boosted its revenue after Covid19 are:

  • Grocery Online Stores
  • Health & Wellness
  • Medical essential
  • Baby products
  • Hygiene products

Q2: Which e-commerce business got defeated by the Covid 19?

A2: Ecommerce businesses that got defeated by the Covid 19 are:

  • Bag & travel accessories
  • Tourist sites
  • Sport & Fitness

Q3: Which e-commerce business got the maximum digital payments in India after the coronavirus outbreak?

A3: According to the Statista report, grocery e-commerce businesses receive maximum digital payment.