The hot topic of 2020 undoubtedly has been the deadliest outbreak of Coronavirus. This pandemic has hit more than 17.6M cases worldwide, and the numbers have reached 1.7M in India, among which more than 36,000 deaths are recorded. Observing the increasing number of cases, the Indian government announced a nationwide lockdown. Further, complete lockdown brought recession in several domains, such as the food industry, tourism, hospitality, aviation, automobile and more. The citizens can only avail essential things to meet their daily needs. But there are few industries, which in contrast to the aforementioned industries have witnessed significant growth during all these hard times - Online Gaming, Online Gambling, and E-commerce being few of them.
“time and found playing games online as one of the best ways to overcome their boredom. Many families participated in group games to keep them entertained. Besides, online gaming many people joined online gambling platforms like Jungle Raja and Royal Panda, to enjoy the best of both worlds, where the variety of games keep them entertained and they could also earn real money.
Also, e-commerce platforms witnessed a huge surge during the lockdown period. People started ordering essentials as well as household things online to contain the spread of the virus. Even after the government announced to Unlock the country, allowing regular business operations, a huge population is still sticking to e-commerce platforms to buy goods. The industry has emerged as an essential one during the phase. However, it is difficult to claim the future of the industry in the future, but we have made some predictions about its performance and the factors that can affect the industry post the pandemic.
1. Flow of Orders at Online Shopping Portals
Since the pandemic put a complete shutdown on the roadside or street-side businesses, the owners are migrating to the internet and taking their business online, which eventually has raised the competition among the web-based businesses. However, due to the lack of several essential products at stores, the sales in certain sectors have seen a surge. The citizens are automatically switching from supermarkets or malls to online portals, like Grofers and Big Basket. The experts expect this trend to be continued for many coming years.
2. Efficient and Time-Saving Way to Shop
Another one of the major benefits of using online portals to buy products is that you do not have to visit the stores or markets, which makes it an efficient and time & an energy-saving way to shop. Ecommerce portals like Amazon or Flipkart allow the buyers to select and shop multiple items at one time, that too without even stepping out of the home. And everything you buy is delivered at the doorstep, which eliminates the need to step out for shopping purposes. These days even small stores have started to deliver the products online.
3. Enhanced Sale of The Pandemic Related Products
Due to this deadliest virus, shopping behaviour and consumer patterns have changed a lot. With the shortage of PPE kits at offline stores, people are routing towards e-commerce sites. Therefore, to sustain the competition, owners are adopting the current trends. Many sellers have started adding items related to coronavirus prevention, such as soap, sanitizers, masks and other PPE products to meet the customer's demand.
4. Retailers Switching to Essential Goods
Since most buyers are still sticking to the essential products, retailers selling non-essential goods such as jewellery, home decor, have faced a huge loss, which we predict to last for the long-term. Well, many retailers have started adding essential products on their list. Switching to a different niche altogether is not that easy as pie, but there is
still a little hope.
5. Transformation of Local General Stores
Even the owners of local general/Kirana stores have adopted digital transformation to survive this tough time. These stores have even played a very crucial role amid the outbreak. Due to the scare of the virus, people have started looking for different ways to buy things without coming into contact with others. And, with the digitization of these stores, people now can get their products with home delivery service of these stores.
Since Coronavirus has forced people to rely on e-commerce portals, we can expect tremendous growth of the industry even after COVID-19.