Many businesses have been struggling to make ends meet since the global pandemic began. Most of them changed to or update their online presences, while some of them needed to fully reorganize their whole business. If you are a business owner and just started to think to move into E-commerce, you’re a bit late and you should do it now. 

We’ll tell you why.

E-Commerce Before Global COVID-19 Pandemic

The E-commerce business model has been around since early 1970s. And since the development of the internet-based E-commerce system in early 1990s, the new digital way of doing businesses has been growing steadily. The giants of online marketplace then show up in 1995; Amazon and eBay, followed by Alibaba in 1999. 

Now the whole world from East to West knows that their basic needs can be fulfilled without the need to leave their home. Basically, everything is just one-click away. Smart business owners even realized that their online stores have been boosting the performance of their whole sales channel, especially from the customers nearby their offline stores. They didn’t look at it as a threat, instead of as an opportunity to perfectly complement their physical stores.

Slowly but sure, we realized that the physical stores were successfully designed & built to get customers in the 20th century, and now the online stores need to be established to cater the needs of the 21st century customers. Businesses with zero online presences, would eventually be replaced with the new digital-savvy businesses.

E-commerce During Global COVID-19 Pandemic

Since early 2020 (or late 2019), the global pandemic hit. Not only to people’s health, it also hit business sector, and forced many businesses around the world to make drastic changes or entirely shut down its operations. Business owners had to set up an E-commerce model of their business and set up online marketplaces and its social media, as one of their selling channels. In short, the global pandemic solidified the need for E-commerce, through and through.

Here are a few reasons why:

Cheaper price online

An online store or marketplace doesn’t have to pay for utilities and any other costs associated with having a physical store. The selling price of any goods can be further reduced. Surely a business owner can maintain the same price value between the online and offline stores, but once other retailers adjust their selling price online, the business owners need to adjust eventually. Essential products like groceries and beverages are also available in online marketplaces, and with a bit cheaper price; driving more and more traffic to these platforms. 

Why should you make the effort to go out to the store during a pandemic, when you can just buy almost everything through your mobile phone, and most of the time at cheaper prices?

Online marketplaces competition

With the surge of new customers to their marketplace, business owners have been competing with one another to give promotion offers and good delivery services to their newly acquired customers. More free vouchers, more cashbacks, more same day delivery, more reason for customers to download apps, install, sign up, and make purchases – just like putting gasoline onto a flame. It attracts and benefits both sellers and buyers. Very convenient.

Social distancing

Now when the global pandemic still happening, many places still implementing strict health protocol and social distancing. The concerns in society about the possibility of a rising new wave of the infections and an increased focus on personal hygiene is only encouraging social distancing and other behavioral change in the future. Online shopping, for example. It’s much safer to limit your outdoor activities, and if possible, to do all daily activities from home. 

The last reason is actually the one that solidified the need for E-commerce nowadays. 

Now when people of all ages can find the comfortable and safety of making any purchases online, the E-commerce can only get bigger from there. True, not all activities can be done online (e.g., go to the movies), but for so many people right now, especially the ones who has high-risk of being infected or has comorbidity, going through the online marketplace & making purchases from there, seems to be the safest option to take.

The Future of E-commerce

So, how about the future of E-commerce, will it totally replace the conventional store? No more brick-and-mortar store? We can’t really tell at this time. But for sure, E-commerce business model is the only one thriving and making improvements during these difficult times. 

As a business owner here’s what you can do:

Explore digital business channels & and invest in digital marketing 

See into your initial business model and choose what type of online channels that match and valid with your business. Don’t forget to also invest in digital marketing to complement your online platform efforts.

Build better branding

Improve your branding (or rebranding) to match with your digital marketing efforts. Determine your niches, gather data from your customers, and build better branding from there.

Strengthen technology options

Explore any available tools that you can utilize to promote and run your digital business channels. Do you need to build a customized website, or sign up and set account in an existing marketplace, or do both in an E-commerce platform like Shopify? Are you planning to have different store accounts later? Do you need an ERP system to manage it all? See our article about ERP system here.

Empower customer support & experience

Once you have your online platforms ready and running, don’t forget to maintain customer relations and have customer supports standby. Many customer-related issues can be solved effectively if the store has good relations with its regular customer. 

Upgrade supply chain management

When you go online and orders are increasing, let’s not forget to maintain your stock level. Revisit and upgrade your supply chain system if it’s required to do so. It’ll help to maintain your daily orders and build credibility for your brand and services.

Good luck!