Notes:
- Exposing a new generation to eCommerce
- Remote work is more popular
- Logistics will need to catchup
- Impacting certain segments – Luggage, wedding supplies, GYM bags, etc.
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Transcript :
Charles (00:00):
In this episode of the business of eCommerce I talk about what COVID-19 is doing for the eCommerce industry. This is the Business of eCommerce episode 129.
Charles (00:16):
Today’s episode is sponsored by drip, drip it’s of world’s first e-commerce CRM and a tool that I personally use for email marketing and automation. Now, if you’re running an eCommerce store, you need to have drip to try. And here’s why drip offers one-click integrations for both Shopify and Magento. There’s robust segmentation, personalization, and revenue dashboards. To give you an overview of how your automation emails are performing. One of my favorite features of drip is the visual workflow builder. It gives you a super easy way to build out your automation world visually and see the entire process. It lets you get started quickly, but also build very complex automation roles. It’s powerful, but also easy to learn. Unlike a lot of email tools that offer the same type of automation to get a demo of drip today, you can go head over to drip.com/boe that’s drip.com/b O E.
Charles (01:04):
Now under the show, welcome to the business. E-Commerce the show that helps eCommerce retailers start launch and grow their eCommerce business. I mean, host Charles [inaudible] and I’m here today to talk about what COVID-19 is doing for the eCommerce industry. So notice I said, what COVID-19 is doing for that eCommerce industry. When this first started, a lot of folks are very gloom and doom. They thought kind of the sky was falling. This was in a close, everything was getting shut down. I know a lot of folks kinda laid off their employees looking forward saying, okay, we’re going to have this big recession. And in the past few months that hasn’t happened. Well, we’ve actually seen what I’ve seen through the business hair, through talking to different retailers is there are some folks that have been hit, but more of them have actually seen a drastic increase in business.
Charles (02:00):
Some have been on this piece where they’ve got a huge boost there we’re in the right place at the right time selling products that really resonated, but others have just seen a very steady increase. And I think that’s due to several different factors. So first as we all know, people are staying home or ordering online more, makes it very obvious. They can’t go to stores, right? You can’t get in your car. You can’t just drive to the local store, pick something up. So there’s that there’s is a short term. And what a lot of folks are thinking is that’s kind of where the boost is coming from. But I think to unpack there’s some longer term effects there that we’re going to see for not just, you know, the next few weeks and months, but this could turn it indefinitely. We’re going to see a boost.
Charles (02:47):
So one big shift has happened in the past few months. There’s a whole generation, an older generation, maybe folks in their sixties, seventies, eighties, that have never purchased online, have all of a sudden been forced to do so. So would they couldn’t run out and just run to the local store or pick something up. There are folks out there that the very first e-commerce order it ever fulfilled, ever created has been in the past three months. So where are this time where all of a sudden this entire generation has been essentially forced to use e-commerce as a tool. And they’ve kind of found out this is something we can do. Let’s create an Amazon account, let’s start searching online. We need a product. Let’s learn how to do that. Let’s not be so fearful of putting our credit card into a website. And I think a lot of people are underestimating that piece of it, but that is now shifted in their mindset possibly forever.
Charles (03:42):
And all of a sudden those same users are now going to come back again and again, and start being repeat buyers. And they’ve kind of found how easy it is to buy online and how it’s actually helped them. So is that whole generation gets even older. They’re going to actually want to buy online more now. So I think COVID one big thing. So coronavirus has done give that generation, the generation, the people out there that had just have never bought in line except they’ve pulled them into it and now is making them in e-commerce shopper like the rest of us. So I think that’s very underestimated. It’s also, I think, made a very lot of shift and remote work. I know a lot of companies I’ve talked to here that head offices are looking at actually turning their workforce is either part or semi remote.
Charles (04:34):
And that is a huge shift on how we’re going to buy. If you’re not getting in a car every day, you’re not driving to an office every single day. You know, on the way home, when you pop into target to pick something up, go into Walmart, you might not be doing that anymore. That same remote worker now is going to be sitting at home. They’re more likely to say, Hey, I need to go order a new whatever toaster. Let’s just jump online. Find that real quick. And they’re going to purchase that online. So the whole remote work, it makes it more apt for users to buy online because they’re not in their cars. And I think that’s me again, a huge shift that people are thinking, this is kind of a pop, but the way I see it is this going to be a mess, much longer term, maybe indefinite increase in eCommerce and just a shift.
Charles (05:25):
There are some segments that are to impacted. I know if you’re selling luggage or wedding supplies or gym bags, you’ve been hit that I think will come back. So those industries that have been negatively effected that is short term, right? Like people are gonna start traveling again. People are gonna start having weddings. Again, people will start going to the gym. Eventually this all will start happening. So the negative impacts will actually be short, short term, but the positive impacts are going to be very long term. Some of the things that I think are going to positively impact e-commerce it’s all of a sudden logistics has drastically found out where there, the holes were, where the weak spots and they have to catch up all of a sudden. So we’ll see for the first time in history, we’re seeing Amazon not be able to keep up with orders.
Charles (06:14):
The order flow is crushed. Even Amazon, some of these big logistics companies, ups, FedEx, they’re all having trouble there. See with it. We spots are, and the volumes are really starting to show those. They’re going to have to a patch up those weak spots, but it’s gonna make them in the long run. Stronger, better shipping times are actually going to get better over time. So we’re going to see a very longterm increase and what does does for logistics. So I think in the longterm, logistics is going to improve. It’s going to improve the buying experience online. Now we’re exposing remote workers, buying online, more baby boomers and the older generation. And just folks that haven’t bought in line, they’re going to be exposed and all these different factors combined, we’re going to start to see a very longterm shift and we are seeing it already.
Charles (07:05):
It just e-commerce is going to stay like this. So this I think is the new norm. And maybe again, it’d been some people selling masks online, a face mask, that sort of thing. That will be a short term bump that will dip down. But the longterm numbers of just more order is moving online. I think that’s out of state. So that’s at least bye thought on where we are. I would love to hear your thought, share it in the comments below. If you can like this subscribe wherever you’re listening to watching. Definitely anything you can do happy to hear from you. So please feel free to reach out and we’ll chat again next week. Thanks. Talk to you soon.
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