"market-mantra" Covid-19: Doom to Human Race, Boon to E-Commerce

 

March 24th 2020, India following the footsteps of the far west declared the event which this generation never witnessed before "Nation wide Lock-down". The billion head count of Indian population settled themselves in a self proclaimed house arrest in a legit race of survival from a Pandemic.

"Massacre" is a not so worthy enough word to describe this time frame. With caesura of daily work force, came a heavy blow on the economy. An inflation, recession and a GDP as microscopic as the deadly virus came all hand in hand. From daily waged laborer to white collared techie, everyone fell prey of this apocalypse look alike.

As we are knocking the door of December or we may call it the final showdown of a hell of a year, the one sunshine in this pandemic I really want to address to is "E-Commerce". 

Online shopping post the Unlock 1.0 has generated quite a hype specifically in the tier1 and tier2 cities of India. Being behind the closed doors for months which literally feels like eternity now, "Your package has been dispatched" message has become the only flick of happiness for millions.  

Starting from the inception of Pandemic, we saw a period of Panic Buying. A complete chaos and a lack of knowledge about a never seen before event triggered bulk purchases and hoarding activities. Which further led to crisis of sanitization and medical commodities for our frontline warriors.

Bringing that situation into control, came the second phase. The phase of living within limited resources during a period of 21 days of complete lockdown. This phase almost stretched to a point of defying the the "Law of Demand".

Followed by the gradual unlock and the loosening of E-Commerce limitations, we saw a boom in online shopping activities. Customers switched from their grocery hopping, window shopping to E-Commerce scrolling. The various Online shopping platforms saw a rising graph. Even the online food delivery platforms relished the situation as the strict rules got enforced on restro-pubs.

Business data platform Statista stated that "the consumer retail segment is expected to see an increase in losses ranging from 3-23%, depending on the market. The report even included that the average retail e-commerce revenue per user in the nation was $50 as of 2018, and is expected to go up till $75 by 2024." 

Covid-19 has caused a hype in e-commerce penetration globally driven by consumers’ need for safety and convenience. Even in India, online is gaining eminence. A Bain & Company-PRICE survey of 3000 households across income groups and geographies which was conducted between April and June, revealed about 13% respondents buying online for the first time, while about 40% buying more online.

Taking advantage of the situation, the E-Commerce companies created a digital transformation in terms of Digital Marketing focusing on Customer centric innovation. From absolute eye candied flash messages to blog posts throwing to landing pages, the marketers around the globe tightened their gloves to grab mass attention. And recently stepping in the so-called the holiday season came the Black Friday sales, which actually made me loose count of the number of Sales these online shopping platforms gifted us this year. Little did we pay attention to Discount sums of "R.S. Agarwal" in the 9th standard, the pocket pinch would have been much less.

 Now, lets throw some limelight to the psychological factor involved in this chronic buying tendency. A fair share of this kind of Consumer Buying Behavior goes to the concept of "Impulsive Buying". The pandemic not just increased gross online sales of essential commodities but also of non-essential commodities. As there is a saying "Idle mind is Devil's workshop", with the sudden interruption in the Rat Race of Gen z gave birth to impulsive buying tendencies. With the onset of this sudden vacation with flooding advertisement and abundance of internet we got trapped in the cycle of wish list - add to bag - checkout - continue shopping. Online shopping became the synonym for Guilty pleasure and this is where the "Law of Demand" overruled. 

Well, while concluding I would like to bring some focus on a noticeable concern of this time. This pandemic is a complete disaster for small scale businesses. We saw the trending controversy of "Baba ka Dhaba", the main point of which was a pandemic struck dying business. There are thousands of such small scale businesses, grocers, vegetable peddlers who are being heavily penalized under such economic pressure and this sudden paradigm shift of buying behavior. So, as responsible citizens and the flag bearers of this country we can bring small changes by shifting our buying habits to such small scale business and sacrificing a few minutes of the comfort at home. Also, even when we are bringing such changes we definitely should follow the Social Distancing norms and Sanitizing measures.

Just like "Little drops of water, little grains of sand  makes a mighty ocean" , lets bring smile to a face and the nation will follow to survive together.