A Digital Transformation: E-commerce

Consumer behavior quickly adapts when COVID 19 hits us this 2020. No doubt, online services emerge as we fight against this virus. From online grocery, ride-hailing, telemedicine and even video chats to movie streaming became the key factors in helping us avoid in-person contact to reduce the risk of having new infections.

As the virus continues accelerating, we are now facing new challenges that we have never experienced before. Offline businesses are trying to enter the online world and it is evident that this global crisis took a massive hit to what we call traditional. Now as we embrace the new norm, many businesses have found themselves in very uncomfortable situations.

Predicting the future is impossible but it is logical for us to foresee the trend based on what has happened to us these past few months.

“Creativity and innovation are about finding unexpected solutions to obvious problems, or finding obvious solutions to unexpected problems.” by Rei Inamoto

Due to the rapid change in our economy, online platforms services continue to evolve. During the pandemic, the video conferencing platform Zoom shows that their rating skyrockets and will not drop even after the nationwide lockdown.

JPMorgan cites that third-party data showing a massive 340% increase in daily active users on Zoom since the end of December.

What are the new advantages of having an online platform for your business?

Even before the community quarantine, e-commerce continues to strive compared to traditional retailing. Shopify mentioned — Online business continues to grow for more than 12% per annum, compared to 4% for retail in general. Now since we are in the midst of the global nightmare, growth for e-commerce quickly escalates.

Experts are already mentioning that they are predicting that online business’ sales will reach for more than $4 trillion in just this year. Ecommerce Statistics for 2020 is already bringing up with the latest e-commerce trends and shows that it is, in fact, growing all over the globe.

Not bad to invest in online business. Experts are expecting that 95% of purchases will be done online by the year 2025. The survey indicates that the top reason for online shopping is that people can buy things that they want anywhere at any time of the day.

Make sure that your online business platform runs fast to boost sales. The speed of a website is a factor in Google. Amazon suggested that their conversion rate was increased by 7% when a website tends to load a second faster. Websites or online platforms that are running slow are quickly having an abandonment of a whopping 75%.

Behavior across the internet ecosystem

There are many different types of behavior across the internet ecosystem. Since we are in a pandemic, there are 3 types of these are emerging.

1. Embracing the new norm— people are now investing tools for working at home. It may be for personal growth or for entertainment purposes; people are subscribing to a lot of online platforms. Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, are just a few of the companies who are having huge piles of subscribers in just the past few months. One that stood out was the video conferencing platform Zoom.
2. All about surviving — it is not surprising that people are in a panic mode and buying items for their needs. Hygenic and in-can foods are the top tier in people’s grocery lists.
3. Personal growth and self-help — discounts and free online mentoring platforms now emerging online and a lot of people grabbing these kinds of opportunities. From fitness to business to leadership; we are now experiencing an outpouring of people requesting online training to which they can improve their skills.

Not to mention, online shoppers will not go back to traditional retailing when they are already used to shopping online. Their habits will change even after community quarantine has lifted and malls continue to operate. COVID 19 was a quick trendsetter and no one is prepared for this. It is every reason for a business owner to plan accordingly to survive.

Mobile and tablet friendly sites

This is pretty obvious but a lot of websites that are not mobile-friendly are losing their conversion percentage. An estimate suggests that it is more than half of the online sales are coming from mobile and it will boost in the coming years.

A website must be in a seamless experience for all kinds of devices. Making your website feel like an app instead of just another page in the browser will generate and attract more customers for your online business. Note that forcing a user to download an application to have access to your online store will drive customers away. Make sure you have your online presence ready to be typed in any browser to different kinds of devices.

What makes an E-commerce thrive?

Amazon, Walmart, Costco, and Target are just a few of the top tier e-commerce platform that a lot of people uses.

© bigcommerce.com

From the book Be Like Amazon: Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It, Jeffery & Bryan Eisenberg with Roy H. Williams suggested that there are 4 Pillars of Success that Amazon had.

1. Being Customer-Centric — Amazon keeps on changing as the trend changes which means putting themselves on the shoes of their customers. This is how Amazon noticed that customer who buys today will change their buying behavior in the future. Addressing all customer’s concerns and giving them a Help Center that is very detailed and easy to understand.
2. Being Creative — Conducting experiments is what Amazon usually does. Coming up with different strategies to improve the shopping experience thus growing their conversion rate over time.
3. Being Focused on the experience of the customer — It is all about the customer at the end of the day. It is on how they give their customers a part of engagement by granting them powers to give likes, stars, and reviews to share their experience. It is all about the customers’ experience and opinion that really matters.
4. Improving & Optimizing — Getting data regularly and using it properly. There are always numbers when it comes to whatever business you have. It is a matter of how you engage with the data you have. In Amazon, numbers are always important. Every aspect of their business is in-line with the numbers that they have every day. From customer experience to operations to marketing to sales. You name it, there are always numbers.

These strategies that are stated above are already proven and tested. As you can see, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon is the current #1 richest person in the world. Lazada, Shopee, Grab, and Lalamove are already using these kinds of blueprints in order for them to survive in the Philippine business.

It is about surviving as we face this current global nightmare. Preparing ourselves in many more uncomfortable situations are always predicted to come. It is a matter of how we act and how we plan for it.