The measures taken to combat the coronavirus have led to enormous worldwide growth in e-commerce: online sales have increased by 20 % in the first quarter, with peaks of more than 40 %. Will this become the norm?
+ 41 % in March
In the first quarter of this year, online sales across the globe went up by 20 %, driven by side-effects of the coronavirus. As many stores were forced to close, online traffic increased by 16 % between January and March and online shoppers spent an average of 4 % more per visit. The first quarter thus exceeded the already busy year-end period of 2019.
CRM provider Salesforce has published its “Q1 Shopping Index”, in which it analysed the (online) shopping behaviour of more than a billion people in 34 countries. The company discovered that the adoption of e-commerce is growing rapidly, even among age groups that were more reluctant before. The number of unique online shoppers has increased by 40 % compared to the same period a year ago. Older generations, in particular, are embracing e-commerce, albeit out of necessity.
In the last two weeks of March, marked by the beginning of lockdown in many countries, online sales growth has peaked at 41 % worldwide. For essential goods, such as food and personal care, online spending even increased by 200 % between 10 and 20 March. Other product categories also performed well: sales of household goods increased by 51 % over the previous year, sales of sports and outdoor clothing reached a peak of 31 %, while sales of toys and games grew by 34 %.
More discounts than on Black Friday
According to Salesforce, high online promotions contributed significantly to this increase: in order to stimulate demand and reduce inventory, discounts in the United States reached 34 % in mid-March, well above the average discounts given on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The rest of the world soon followed the American example.
Of course, this digitisation of the consumer has also accelerated the digitisation of the offer. Online services, reservation and take-away services or the creation of a virtual customer service, were often hastily put in place to respond to the new reality brought about by the coronavirus crisis.
Like holiday season
All this will not be in vain, because even if lockdown measures are soon relaxed, consumers will continue to turn to e-commerce. The period of massive stockpiling and initial panic may be behind us, but now is the time to address other needs: hobbies and gardening will contribute to the increase in e-commerce revenues for the second quarter, Salesforce predicts: some consumers will use them to avoid taking risks, others because they have adopted new habits.
What started out as “exceptional” buying behaviour, quickly becomes a natural part of the shopping experience. According to Salesforce, this is also what we see every time after the holiday season: the use of e-commerce, smartphone shopping, and multi-channel services such as click&collect have all made a breakthrough during this period.
