E-commerce is also forecast to grow as America restarts business.
E-commerce enabling platform CommerceHub, which hosts more than 12,000 resellers, brands and suppliers, said its online order volume over the network has more than doubled annually between April 1 and May 31, 2020.
In addition, through a Namogoo survey in late April, nearly 1,100 consumers in the U.S. revealed that 75 percent expect to maintain or even increase online shopping after the pandemic ends - and more than 60 percent of grocery shoppers plan to maintain or increase their online shopping.
The trend in online shopping is having an impact around the world, extending to offline shopping. Inditex, which owns a variety of luxury brands such as Zara and Massimo Dutti - and is one of the world’s largest clothing stores - is closing up to 1,200 stores, mainly in Asia and Europe, to reduce losses and focus on digital sales.
Inditex plans to invest $ 1.1 billion in online stores and another $ 1.8 billion in stores to better integrate with websites. The goal is to increase online sales from 14 percent of total sales in 2019 to 25 percent by 2022.
“I see the future of retail as more of a showroom model that Warby Parker, Tesla and even Amazon are doing with their Amazon 4-star stores,” Netalico CEO Mark Lewis told the E-Commerce Times. .
“Personal retailing is an optional way to try before you buy, but in the end, the transaction is likely to be done in the traditional way of e-commerce,” Lewis said.
"As technology evolves with augmented reality, for example, it is possible to imitate personal experience more and more." Distribution and service budgets for AR and VR technologies are expected to reach $ 4.4 billion this year, and the pandemic may provide an increase.
New tools for e-commerce
“The impact of this crisis on retail cannot be overestimated,” said CommerceHub founder and CEO Frank Poore. "It's critical that retailers turn their investments back to where consumers spend their money: online."
Introduced last week, CommerceHub Flash provides brands with access to retail and market sales channels combined with tools to optimize distribution, implementation, and delivery. It allows brands to:
Integrated with wholesale channels including Walmart, Home Depot and Macy, as well as marketplaces such as Amazon, Walmart, eBay and Target +;
Syndicate product content and inventory availability across all channels.
Sync with ecommerce audiences, including Shopify, Netsuite, and Magento;
Provides dynamic, shopping cart delivery promises on its website;
Intelligent route orders from their own distribution centers, the firm Ingram Micro fulfillment center, third-party logistics warehouses (3PL) or stores;
Geographically distribution warehouses fast delivery; and
Get support for the new two-day broadcast program from Amazon Merchant Fulfilled Prime and Walmart.
How to prepare for an online sales course
“One of the first things companies need to do is ensure that their technology infrastructure is equipped to manage traffic growth,” RMG Media founding partner Ryan Gellis told the E-Commerce Times. "The best marketing campaigns are only as good as the weakest infrastructure to support them."
Businesses then need to make sure they market effectively and continue to consume to drive traffic, Gellis said.
"Thanks to COVID-19 and LM movements, many companies are confused about marketing costs or whether they should market at all, and in general, strong successors benefit from more affordable advertising and increased presence and sales."
Online merchants should evaluate their current e-commerce platform and see if it can scale at the rate they are currently growing, as this is the new normal for e-commerce, suggested Netalico’s Lewis.
They should also look at other areas of business, such as customer service, and make sure they have the right processes and tools to keep up with new growth, he said.
“SMEs should consider SaaS online stores like Shopify and BigCommerce to offer a solution that requires less in-house technology to start and expand their business,” Lewis recommended.
"Large companies are more likely to consider their current internal technologies, such as ERPs and integrations needed to expand the scale of current e-commerce."
The pandemic showed the weakness of the supply chain, Gellis said, and the new post-pandemic system "is likely to have more redundancies, still a visible cost to businesses and ultimately to consumers."
Services like Uber Direct and other outsourced couriers are “likely” to be taken more into account if the supply chain slows down at the distribution layer, Gellis predicts.
This would increase the flexibility of the system and allow for an increase in deliveries when local municipalities may be closed, but “I don’t know if the impact of such an outsourced courier service should necessarily keep pace with demand,” he said.
The trucks that carry goods in cross-country skiing are huge, and "when comparing the amount of cargo carried by 18-wheel fleets compared to the contractor fleet driving the Prius, it's hard to imagine how many Uber drivers would be needed to complete the road supply chain."
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