How Coronavirus is Impacting E-Commerce

While countless businesses are scrambling to find alternative ways to serve their customers, many e-commerce brands have seen significant growth throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. For a lot of consumers, social distancing and business closures have changed how they shop, the lengths they’ll go to purchase a product, and what they’re willing to buy online. This article addresses how the coronavirus is impacting e-commerce.

Consumers are buying online from new product categories. Just months ago, most consumers refused to buy groceries online. Americans in particular had a range of concerns about online grocery shopping; the biggest being that they simply preferred to physically see and choose their groceries. Nobody wanted to risk paying for low-quality items or produce that wasn’t fresh, or was bruised or otherwise imperfect.

That changed quickly. When suddenly everything was out of stock in brick-and-mortar stores, and venturing into public spaces became risky and inadvisable, there was a dramatic spike in people searching for and buying food and beverage products online. At PriceSpider, we track views, clicks and transactions for our client’s products on brand websites and major online retailers. Here’s what happened to the online food and beverage industry when the coronavirus hit the U.S.

This was true for other product categories as well. If people had the option to buy something online, they were a lot more likely to do it. Availability and convenience vastly outweighed the benefits of in-person shopping.

Across all of PriceSpider's Where to Buy technology in all industries, we saw a 123 percent year-over-year increase in transactions from March 14 to March 23.

Shoppers Are Looking Online Before Going to Physical Stores

Over the last few weeks, the surge in sales — both online and in-store — led to another big change. As stores began to run out of stock, consumers continued to look for products online, but they either couldn’t find them in stock or decided to buy in person. For many e-commerce brands, online views increased more than online transactions, and many e-commerce supply chains struggled to keep up with demand.

People Are Turning to Brands to Learn Where Products Are In-Stock

When shoppers can’t find the products they want, they have two options: buy an alternative product or look somewhere else.

Many brands have seen a significant increase in website traffic as consumers turn to the brands they want rather than the retailers they prefer. They can’t assume a retailer will have the product they want available, so they’re looking to the brands themselves, expecting those brands to know when their products are in stock. This puts brands that use where-to-buy solutions at a big advantage.

Customers Are Using Tools to Track Product Availability

Right now, a lot of product categories have slim pickings online and in-store. And when new stock becomes available, it sells out fast. Therefore, consumers are looking to brands and retailers for updates about stock.

Show Your Customers Where to Buy Your Products

For e-commerce brands, one of the biggest takeaways from the COVID-19 pandemic is that you’re in the best position to help your customers find your products. If you don’t already have tools to highlight which retailers carry your products, now is the time to invest in them. And if you do have a where-to-buy solution, you need to make sure it highlights up-to-date stock information and includes an option for getting alerts about availability, as well as ensuring you get sell-through data so you can know that the purchase paths you're presenting to customers are working and optimized.

Anthony Ferry is the CEO of PriceSpider, an advanced retail data and technology company that also provides insights about consumer purchasing behavior to the world's largest brand manufacturers.