As the countries around the world are planning to unlock, there are infinite anticipated questions about the business landscape ahead that remains a riddle. The changes in consumer behaviour will persist for quite some time. Businesses will have to understand the depth of these changes and re-strategise their market approach. During such uncertain times, companies and businesses need to be on their foot to gather and analyse data quickly and accurately. This will help them to be agile, take response measures, and make informed decisions to whatever twists and turns the pandemic throws their way.

While there are deeper learnings about consumer behaviour, three trends are emerging across the sectors and domains – contact-less experience, social distancing, and digitization. Irrespective of the location, industry, or sector, the one strategy that will address these trends is of e-commerce. In the recent few weeks, the world has observed a new wave in the usage of e-commerce platforms. The industry has become more dense and intense than ever for millions of businesses who may have not thought about selling online before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Let us look at how businesses can use e-commerce technology to scale during and post this pandemic:

Convenience:

Convenience has always topped the list while strategizing the e-commerce plan. People are getting used to online shopping mainly because of this major factor. One thing that companies must understand that consumer habits and preferences keep changing and they need to adapt to it. To be at par with ever-changing dynamics of what is convenient shopping, the business will have to do real-time research and take necessary actions accordingly. Currently, people are looking to shop for essential products such as groceries, medicines, dairy products, etc at their convenience. Many e-commerce apps and companies have understood this and tried to deliver in-demand items conveniently to consumers. For example, Swiggy and Zomato had started delivering groceries through their food-delivery mobile application.

Social distancing and contact-less experience: 

As the countries have started to unlock, there has been a major concern about a pandemic blowback. The increased focus on personal hygiene and the new normal social distancing has lead to the emergence of ‘contact-less experience’. This will encourage continued online shopping and reiterate the behavioural change in the long run.

Elderly Consumers to come online: 

For a long time, the elderly population is expected to be in self-imposed quarantine as they are most vulnerable to the COVID-19 infection. Hence, they are likely to use online mediums for their regular shopping and delivery. With them signing-up as customers of the e-commerce platform, the existing customer behavioural trend will be altered and accelerated. The population of 65+ aged is huge in many countries, therefore this will make up a massive customer segment for the companies to serve digitally.

Intensified Competition: 

Convenient, safe, and agile practice of shopping and delivery is what the customers today are looking for. If you lack behind in any of these key practices, or if your competition is doing it in a better fashion, then you are bound to lose customers until you adopt a new approach. For example, when the food delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato started delivering groceries, they were strongly competing with bigbasket, Grofers, Amazon, Godrej Natures Basket, etc. Even while they did have tough competition, the approach was well accepted in the market. Therefore, when businesses disrupt and emerge, they become a better and strong competition.

Many online customers are changing their behaviour and purchase patterns as they are opting for a more convenient, safer, and time-saving experience. This will add some strain on e-commerce platforms and online retailers today. How they analyse, gather insights, and react to these changes will define the future of the e-commerce industry in the world. Even post the removal of lockdown restrictions, the consumer behavioural changes will remain the same for some time. This change will transform the retailing and e-commerce landscape for the years to come. If you are looking to set-up an e-commerce platform or a mobile application, then reach out to us at +91- 9863077000 or [email protected].

The last decade introduced the world to the digitization of many sectors. This helped the global trade to increase worldwide as many developing and emerging countries became important trading partners and potential sales and development markets. Digitization has helped us to be more connected and perform our daily tasks more effectively. It has made the world a global village and people global citizens.

However, the economies built in the previous decade came crashing to the ground in the last few weeks as COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. While the pandemic has had a great impact on the global economy, it taught us how to fight and improve the current condition using technology. It has laid a new pathway by disrupting our lifestyles by enabling contact-less and virtual experiences. Even though the technology cannot prevent the onset of the pandemics, it can, however, help prevent the spread, educate, empower, and warn people around. Today, these technologies are emerging more than ever – mobile, cloud, analytics, robotics, AI/ML, 4G/5G, and high-speed internet.

Let us look at three technologies that are disrupting our lifestyle each day during this pandemic:

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

From tracking the travel history of COVID-19 patents to analysing the symptoms of people exposed to the infection, the applications used by many governments do it all. These applications use chatbots to gather information from people, and the technology used in these applications is that of AI and ML. This enables the government to collect reliable information much easier and faster without any human intervention.

The advent of more such mobile applications and software will help ease the lifestyle of customers.

Extended Reality

Augmented and virtual reality is surely a boon in the world of lockdown and quarantine. This technology can be used in providing more meaningful and real experiences for people. The technology can help you see the world while you are locked in your home. This experience will change the way we travel, work, and relax. For instance: Realty brands can focus on using AR/VR videos to target their audiences by helping them take a walk-through the project while they are seated in the comfort of their home. This is an example of how a sector can use the contact-less experience to their advantage.

Cloud and Internet

The last few weeks have seen a great transition in the way the workforce can function. Companies got to believe that remote working and work from home concepts can be of their advantage. The transition to work from home and remote working has increased the dependency on cloud and internet infrastructure. The usage of this technology is set to remain the same even post lockdown and pandemic as many companies are moving towards welcoming a ‘hybrid’ way of working. This will increase the demand for teleworking applications and software for the team to be connected and interactive.

Talking about the internet, technology has changed the sector of education. It has enabled kids to learn and study from home using applications that require an active internet connection to connect with their peers and teachers. For times to come, e-learning will be an accepted norm for the parents and teachers alike.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated to the world that importance of digital readiness. The acceptance and usage of digital technology will allow the business and individuals to continue their work and chores as usual during the pandemic. The companies at large will focus on building necessary digital infrastructure by using the latest technology to stay connected with their employees and customers. The pandemic has increased their market competition by many folds, therefore businesses will have to take an approach that is human-centred and inclusive using technology governance.