The world is evolving and now more than ever businesses see a strong need to adapt to the current online shopping trend to remain competitive or even survive.
Businesses in Pandemic Time
2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic taught us a lot about human adaptability and the ramifications of failure to adapt in an ever-changing landscape. Through the lockdowns, many online E-Commerce businesses experienced a spike in sales as shopping trends seemed to gravitate more towards online as opposed to physical stores. Traditional brick and mortar stores were however hit hard due to a heavy reduction in foot traffic into the stores or a mandatory closure following a lockdown directive for non-essential businesses. While this is a sad reality and affected a vast majority of small businesses including; shops, restaurants, and grooming businesses such as salons and barber shops, those who opted to think fast and utilize available digital market places such as social media platforms(Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp) were able to keep their business running and with the advent of delivery services such as Glovo and Uber Eats, available on the market, doing business became more reliant on the owner’s willingness and aggressiveness to reach their clients and keep their financial wheel turning by using already existing platforms.
What 2020 taught us, in summary, is the importance of having an online presence for your business, even without having to spend significant capital on building an in-house digital system that the clients could use to continue interacting and purchasing their favorite items from the store. In the end, digital transformation is inevitable for any business to survive in our current time. The earlier businesses start to plan towards their digital transformation the better they increase their chances of staying relevant in the current digital market space.
