E-Commerce Trends Amid Pandemic

E-Commerce Trends Amid Pandemic

Covid-19 can be considered part of us now. Malaysia is moving towards an endemic phase. Many businesses now either are already back on track or still struggling to sustain their businesses.

The Covid-19 global pandemic has rapidly changed e-commerce. E-commerce business is constantly growing amid the pandemic as it is the way to go! Many businesses have learnt the hard way to make their business become online. Here are some trends of e-commerce you should know!

New Product Categories

1. New Trending Product Categories

Grocery ecommerce soared during the pandemic. With the broad expansion of product categories, shoppers are likely to order from online retailers. As stated by MyGrocer, a local online grocery platform, they saw growth by over 1000% in demand during the start of the movement control order (MCO). It was good news when their business volume has rapidly grown 10 times.

Apart from grocery shopping, home goods and fitness products saw sales growth too. The spending increased due to increased spending on home gym equipment and the furnishings and household equipment sector grew.

Less Loyalty from Customers

2. Less Loyalty

For a wide variety of reasons, consumer loyalty to their typical brands has fallen. With consumers shopping from their sofas and home offices, consumers are more driven by price and convenience of finding it online. Brand loyalty has dipped and shopping habits are changing even when the pandemic situation has gotten better. They are able to find the items at the shopping mall.

The chart below illustrates the answers from surveys done in America, and shows a shift to digital and a growing trend for shopping using connected devices such as smartphones, tablets and smart voice assistants such as Amazon Echo, Google Home and Samsung SmartThings.

Consumer profiling by PWCMore than 50% of the global consumers responding to the June 2021 survey said they had used digital devices more frequently than they had six months earlier, when they had taken part in a prior PWC survey.

On the other hand, Malaysians have to stay at home and many companies have chosen working from home for their employees during Covid-19 movement control order (MCO) or lockdowns. Hence, retail businesses had to scramble to go online in order to regain sales and survive, while work-from-home workers adapted to shopping online.

New pricing strategies and loyalty programme needs to take place in order to maintain customer engagement to attract a new set of customers while also retaining existing customers.

People loves socia media shopping

3. Social Media Shopping

Social media shopping is set to explode in popularity in the next few years. It could open up new avenues for smaller businesses. Accenture reported that social commerce is anticipated to boom three times faster than traditional e-commerce in the next four years.

What does social media shopping cover? In-app purchases made on platforms such as Facebook or Instagram on a brand or influencers’ page or via livestream shopping channel is categorized as social media shopping.

In brief, social media shopping is more relatable to smaller businesses as it is  easier access to more customers. You do not have to spend a fortune to allow your potential customers to see your products at your social media page and direct contact to you to make a purchase. In this case, many businesses will have a system like dropship, agent or stockists in order for them to further grow their business and one person (the founder) does not have to entertain every single lead or sales that came by.

Need more ideas & insights to grow your business, read WhyQ blog now.