Amidst the slow-moving economy, COVID-19 has led to a whole new surge in e-commerce and digital transformation.
With lockdown becoming the new normal, both businesses and consumers went full-on digital. Dealing in purchases and selling of goods and services online has now become an everyday habit.
This has led to a raising of the total share of eCommerce global retail right from 14% in the year 2019 to 17% by the end of 2020, and it will surely increase more by the end of 2021
Speed Up of the Digital Transformation
As per Isabelle Durant, who is the Acting Secretary-General of UNCTAD - Both consumers and businesses that managed to go partially digital have also contributed to mitigating the downturn of the economy caused by the pandemic.
At the same time, they have also contributed towards speeding up the whole digital transition that will surely have a long-lasting impact on our daily lives.
Though everyone is not yet ready, they are getting used to it slowly and surely.
Some Progress, Others Fall
As per the various findings, the consumers in the developing and developed economies have a very strong uptake on the whole eCommerce era, which has made a huge shift towards online shopping.
Here are a few insights which prove how COVID-19 triggered the eCommerce growth:
- The online marketplace of Latin America - Mercado Libre-sold almost twice the amount it did in the previous period in the second half of 2020.
- Jumia, which is an African e-Commerce platform, did report a jump of up to 50% of online purchases during the very first six months of 2020
- The online retail share of China rose from 19.% to 25% between August 2019 to 2020.
- The online retail share of Kazakhstan rose from 5% to 9.4% in one year from 2019 to 2020.
- Thailand witnessed a jump in downloads of shopping apps of up to 60% during the first half of 2020.
In 2020, there was an upward trend in eCommerce, and it will surely sustain for the coming years, as people have now become comfortable shopping online.
However, in many of the less developed countries, businesses did not get a chance to capitalize themselves during the pandemic.
Due to plenty of persistent barriers, these companies missed out on the eCommerce opportunities as well.
The barriers include lack of trust from the consumers, poor digital marketing skills, limited attention of the government, costly services, lack of funds, etc.
Hence, no doubt that the countries that could harness the overall potential of e-Commerce will surely be in a better place and will be seen benefiting from the global markets.
Mr Sam, the founder of Printyo Australia said, “No doubt, initially, it was challenging for the businesses to go through the whole transformation from offline to online. However, businesses are now required to accept all these challenges and take further steps to continue by accepting the new way of working. Digital marketing is the new normal for buyers now.”
Government Responses
Most of the governments had prioritized the responses they got from pandemics for the short term.
Some have also gone on to address the long-term needs to build a path of recovery.
Many of the governments in the developing countries had intervened to protect both the incomes of the individual and the businesses.
The governments need to prioritize the readiness of the national digital needs so that even the local businesses can change into producers in the digital economy and not merely stay as consumers.
Building e-commerce or a digital ecosystem does require a change in the public policies, which could improve the digital infra and provide companies with the facilities.
Additional resources: Premier outsourcing partner for On-Demand Gig Economy
The Future of eCommerce
As per Finaria and dissemination of Forbes, global e-commerce sales will reach more than 2,7 trillion dollars in 2021, and should reach 3,4 trillion dollars in 2025. These figures express that the future of e-commerce will see a great rise in the coming time.
In the coming years, e-commerce will dominate the market. It is reasonable to expect that grocery stores will always exist, but they will continue to expand to increase customer convenience. As the pandemic progresses, the popularity of online shopping will rise. Even after the pandemic passes, consumer behaviour will prevail in favour of convenience and choice. Increasing e-commerce adoption and public behaviour are necessary to efficiently serve customers and scale operations.
Any kind of business will end up spending less money and time when using the different online platforms to give a boost to their eCommerce store. COVID-19 has been a boon to the eCommerce sector, which pushed the industry to grow massively.