The COVID-19 Effect on E-Commerce Businesses!

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a huge decline in the world’s economy wherein thousands of companies are shut due to the communal transfer threat of the virus. Due to the COVID crisis, several people have lost their lives, around one-third of the population is dealing with job loss issues, and some are working remotely.

The virus outbreak is like a nightmare for the world and the pandemic is announced as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Amid this entire crisis, what is its impact on businesses?

Well, several industries are facing a complete lockdown and some are on the verge of shutting down permanently. The most affected are the companies offering call centre services because the BPO industry operates manually leading to an in-efficiency in performing the business functions remotely.

Most call centre companies have a team of agents who work for the clients’ customer support and other outsourced services.  Maximum BPOs do not have a cloud-based function which can help the call centre outsourcing firm work remotely even in cases like a pandemic, which is why the industry is majorly hit by the virus attack. 

Nevertheless, when we talk about E-commerce businesses, how does the crisis affect them?

Well, for the E-commerce companies having outstanding Omni-channel and mobile services, such times can bring them loyal partners. Retailers having a strong online presence have made it in this tough time by reaching the target audience quickly and by trying new strategies to woo leads. 

As the crisis goes on creating havoc around the world, the future for E-commerce companies seems to go through a new journey in the time to come. In such tough times, where companies are trying hard to survive, the E-commerce industry is one such sector, which is introducing new job opportunities.

Since contactless payments and delivery choices have gained momentum in such times, the companies offering online services are leveraging these services to reach more audiences.

A study reveals that 36% of the customers feel that they would not go to any shop or store in the time to come until the vaccine for the virus is available. Such a study highlights the need for E-commerce firms to advance their services so that they have adequate resources to reach the audience with whatever is required in short notice. Ultimately, this will help them earn more ROI.

COVID-19 effect based on E-commerce business categories:

1. Health sector

In such tough times, when it is not safe to visit stores and purchase medicinal products too, online services can boom.

When we talk about the consumers’ purchase behaviour, it has changed drastically after the crisis. Relying on research by Neilson, the sale for medicinal products, especially masks, has risen to 300%.

In such pandemic times, the E-commerce companies can be the customers’ helping hands and can help in being safe and subsequently strengthening business opportunities more.  When customer experience is good, the clients will be your influencers automatically and will help you gain more partners.

2. Food and Beverages

The need for groceries is something that will always compel people to come out and purchase the same. However, how about ordering online?

Well, with a pandemic increasing the threat of widespread of the virus, the E-commerce companies offering facilities like online orders and delivery can earn a lot.

People will also be ready to pay the shipping charges when needed because nobody wants to be prone to the virus attack and risk their family’s lives.

Thus if you are a company offering products/services for the same, strategize your services well, so that it reaches the target audience on time and earns customer loyalty for you.

3. Luxury Goods

Apart from the food and beverage sector, the E-commerce sector also includes entertainment, travel, etc. If we talk about them, there has been a subsequent decline in this sector post lockdown.

Such a sector has a defined audience and to keep the business service alive, it is essential to strategize the services accordingly so that it can work even in a crisis. The industry is facing great loss and the time to come will make the sector plan new ideas to survive in such scenarios.

The COVID effect will make these sectors work with a pro plan from the next time.

4. Clothing and Fashion

The E-commerce companies that deal in fashion and clothing had their call support functions outsourced to companies offering call centre services.

Having a call centre outsourcing company as a partner, the E-commerce firm had to witness major customer dissatisfaction, as BPOs were not able to handle incoming inquiries in lockdown when agents were not valuable in-house and remote working was not accessible.

This highlights that soon all BPOs will adopt cloud-based solutions and E-commerce companies will handle call support in-house or will outsource to a reliable cloud-based BPO firm.