The history shows, innovation thrives in times of pandemic or crisis. Pakistan is under lock down; everyone is feeling danger to visit shop because a trip to market basket carries risk. In current situation, we see that most of businesses are struggling to find innovative ways to encourage consumers to stay home and buy their products from home. For instance, many grocery stores and food chains are now offering take-out and delivery services. The delivery platforms like daraz and getnow have experienced a surge in online shopping and have turned into mini supermarkets.
A recent Capgemini report informs that many of customers are doing online shopping of grocery item for the first time. However, the probability of converting to permanently buying online is higher for these first-time buyers. The reason is that when people buy online and find it easy and convenient, they are more likely to keep buying online in future. It becomes their routine. Erik Rosenstrauch, the founder of Fuel Partnerships, a retail marketing firm. says that
“There’s an old phrase, it takes 30 days to make a habit and now we’ve all
had 30 days stuck at home to begin developing new habits.”
In future, people will keep shopping online. A survey of meal planning service reports that 97% of respondents of 3,000 consumers mentioned plan to continue doing online purchase of daily use item in the future. However, certain assurance will be required in term of timely delivery, contactless transaction and wide range of online payment options and adequate compensations in case of order cancellation.
In addition, people will be more conscious of prices. It is because that current recession has brought inflation, job loss and wage loss ultimately it has decreased level of income of households. As a result, People’s sensitive towards prices has increases and this thing will remain continue even COVID-19 passes.
The increasing trend of online shopping of grocery and medicines has been reported particularly in urban areas. The contactless and cashless transactions have become more important than ever before. This phenomenon may not change even after lockdown according to a Capgemini report.
In the coming weeks, the trend of online shopping will remain high and it will increase the growth of e-commerce activity beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Ecommerce is adopting innovative ways to compete. It is observed that online shopping has increased sales dramatically. The other retailers that are not offering online shopping have started thinking to establish it sooner. This indicates that to survive in the market, offline stores will have to offer delivery option.
In sum, even after corona virus, people will keep buying online. The impact of lock down will likely higher for retailers. there is Huge opportunity for retailers to adopt delivery services and they must consider the perpetual change in shopping behaviors of Pakistanis.