Coronavirus is affecting all industries including digital marketing and online shopping industry.
The year 2020 started with a Coronavirus outbreak in China and now after two months Markets across the globe crashed, states, cities, towns were locked down, sporting events were cancelled, as the menace of coronavirus continued to spread in various parts of the world.
The coronavirus outbreak is changing consumer behaviour in this digital era.
Here we are going to talk about the potential impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on eCommerce and the digital marketing industry.
Table of Contents
Fear of doing business with China
If you go to google and search for “CoronaVirus through” then you will observe that from aliexpress, parcels to food items… People asked all their doubts on Google some of the examples are “Coronavirus spread through”, “Coronavirus through parcels”. People are afraid of it and it is normal.
Coronavirus is having a massive impact on the stock market and supply chains. This global health scare is creating widespread economic uncertainty which is seen through a fall in the stock market.
London’s share index and other European markets have fallen dramatically, and similar declines will be seen soon in another part of the world due to operational disruptions and an impact on supply chains.
Given the origins of the virus in China, this means that fewer goods that are made in China will make it to market. Even the largest global players such as Apple and Tesla are struggling and have put their business in China on hold.
Ad spends may drop
When the supply chain will be affected, then the availability of goods may be also reduced, which leads to companies holding back their advertising expenses.
If fewer goods reach the market, business houses will see less profit from advertising, so to avoid heavy loss ad executives will pull back from investing in ads.
There are rumours/ expectations/ or assumptions that the corona virus will be resolved by around June, that’s why companies are postponing the ad spend until the second half of 2020.
Marketing events globally being cancelled/postponed
From Book Fare to the movie release, many important events have already started to be cancelled or postponed, and if the situation gets more critical, there could be further withdrawing from events.
As per the recent update Advertising Week Europe, SXSW and Mobile World Congress have already been cancelled, whereas Adobe Summit (US) is taking place as an online event.
Meanwhile, the F8 developer conference by Facebook is no longer taking place. Companies and institutions avoid large-scale gatherings thus most of the webinars, meetings and other events being hosted online.
It is, however, impacting the working, lead generation and other important processes or business houses.
Panic buying may lead to price hikes
Recently, if you’ve been in a grocery store, you may have noticed a lack of hand wash, hand Sanitiser or toilet roll on the supermarket shelves.
Panic buying is one consequence of any disaster, in it, consumers start to stock up and invest in bulk buying which results in Price Hikes of almost every product.
Research from Liberty Marketing recently revealed that due to the coronavirus outbreak retailers’ own brand hand Sanitiser is being sold for more than 5000% RRP online.
Increase in eCommerce
Panic buying at initial forced people to wander, shop to shop and then due to the unavailability of good people are shifting to online stores to avoid the risk of catching the infection.
At many eCommerce stores, sales of household staples such as rice, sugar, and flour are quadrupling compared to the same time frame in 2019.
Thus, Panic buying is also putting additional pressure on the food delivery network.
Boost in remote working
In this digital age, we can also observe that there is a dramatic change in the way people work, due to this health-related crisis there is a huge increase in remote working.
For example, many workers at Amazon and Microsoft have started working from home.
Additionally, there is a huge increase reported in Usage of online work management software In China.
Microsoft Teams have seen a 500% increase for Team meetings, calling, and conferencing, and a 200% increase in the use of Teams on mobile.
Similarly, Zoom Video Communications has seen its stock price soar and has gained better fourth-quarter results.
Summary of the story is that It is important to keep in mind that the shift in consumer behaviour is a short-term trend.
But if the situation gets more critical, the changes may have a long-term and lasting impact.
At the present time e-commerce represents a bigger share of overall retail sales, compared to other periods so it is expected that the long-term impact is likely to be greater during this health-crisis compared to other health scares on digital platforms and eCommerce websites.
We would like to conclude this article on a high note that the situation will be normal soon and at the present time brands have to keep customers on priority and they also have to keep an eye on changing customer behaviour, particularly in response to changing ecommerce trends.
Corona Virus is affecting eCommerce and digital marketing, but the industry is expected to be back on track very soon.
Those who are planning to start new e-commerce businesses can consider health and (virus) safety products as a practical option. The demand for masks, sanitiser, gloves, etc. is higher than ever.
Consider investing in good quality e-commerce website development, and you’re good to go.
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