Impact of Covid-19 on the E-commerce Industry

With the occurrence of the COVID-19, development, new ranges of abilities and innovation have become crucial for the business environment. This also led the nation, various foundations, and business pioneers confronted with intense decisions and an uncommon degree of uncertainty.

Across the globe, the pandemic has led to mammoth change in various sectors including ecommerce. Commenting on how the pandemic has accelerated the pace of e-commerce adoption, and brought in new trends, Shauravi Malik, Co-founder, Slurrp Farm says, “what we would have wanted to do in a decade, happened in a span of almost 6 months. E-commerce which was earlier associated with young, disruptive and innovative brands has now become a major focus area for MNC’s and other big companies.

Developing on how the pandemic apart from revolutionizing e-commerce has also re-shaped consumer behavior, Mansi Zaveri, Founder, Kidsstoppress Media says, “Very crucial pillars determining how the consumer will buy would be in form of a triangle with trust at its epicenter and its three vertices being community, connect, creation and convenience. Coupled with this, the role of digital and social will have to mirror the sentiment and thought of the consumer in indulge the consumer to buy their product.”

In terms of new trends and challenges brought in by the pandemic, Deep Bajaj, Founder, Sirona Hygiene says, “We saw a lot of new shoppers who came from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities along with many elderlies and this trend is here to stay. The pandemic also posed newer hygienic requirements for the brand, which led to the birth of various new products. Further, cost, transportation, material and labor posed major challenges during the pandemic.”

The challenges which the pandemic brought to life for various companies and service providers were majorly those of manpower as people were back home, transportation as making products available across borders became a problem, cost which skyrocketed during this time and supply chain.

Apart from posing challenges, Covid-19 was as a blessing for many platforms as it resonated the message of ‘digital is the way to go’, promoted contextual buying and helped create more content as demand grew manifolds.

Discussing the scope for niche players in terms of differentiation and value creation in the ecommerce sector, Chinu Kala- Founder, Rubans says, “for a country like India, with a huge population where people want to see more, dress up more, buy more, the opportunities are large. But the challenge here is to create a niche, to bring in innovation at its best. If you’re able to create a niche, India has potential for any segment.”

Adding further, Aditi Handa -Chef & Director the Baker's Dozen says “There is a huge potential for younger companies to come together and bring about discoverability for new and small-scale businesses.”

In order to remain agile with what one has learnt as one moves up the ladder Abhinav Jain, Co-Founder & CEO, Almond commented “the process that I follow is fail fast, where we take up a project as a small one and then find out where we fail and how fast we can revamp it up which creates the real balance between the legacy management and the new age agility. I’d also like to add listening to your customers is key, but listening to your people is the bigger key, which can crack bigger locks”

With a rapid pace, ever widening scope for newer ideas and platforms the e-commerce sector in the next couple for years sure to boom.