COVID-19 Shifting Consumer Behaviour To Online Shopping Experience Across The Globe

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The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted greatly on the economy with the lockdowns several things change. Businesses and consumers have to contend with the new reality of living with the pandemic and shift in shopping preference. The COVID-19 pandemic changed how people shop and the e-commerce space saw a surge with a range of opportunities.

Shift to online shopping

One of the factors that helped the growth of e-commerce space during the pandemic is the change in consumer behavior to online shopping across all categories. Over the pandemic period, online shopping gained significant traction with most categories seeing around 10% growth in their online customer bases. Most of the consumers seem ready to continue with the shift to online shopping even with the reopening of physical locations.

For instance, in India, a report by Bain and Flipkart indicates that the country will see the number of online shoppers reach over 350 million by 2025. This is because the consumer behavior in the lucrative e-commerce segment has been growing continuously.

Consumption of locally produced goods growing

In India, people have been relying on imported goods but with the pandemic disrupting the supply chains, goods couldn’t come into the country from countries like China. As a result, people turned to homegrown brands and supporting local businesses by sourcing products locally. This has been beneficial to local-eCommerce merchants and third-party aggregators who are leveraging growing demand to make India self-reliant. The preference for locally produced goods is one of the major shifts in consumer behavior that we have witnessed as a result of the pandemic.

Online shopping and delivery will define the future

With social distancing and the growth of the internet and technology, people are preferring doorstep delivery. As the online shopping space expands businesses are looking to create a smooth post-order consumer experience. Hyperlocal deliveries have been growing but over the pandemic with people staying at home, deliveries become important. Considering hyperlocal deliveries only serve small areas this has made it possible to fulfill same-day deliveries thus enhancing consumer experience and boosting satisfaction.

Neha Gupta
Neha Gupta
Neha Gupta has cleared CFA Level 2 from CFA Institute (USA). She has worked in diverse capacities from financial research to currency trading in a span of 10 years. Neha also covers technology, finance, retail, automotive, energy and other sectors news.