Rising concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on online shopping in the UK.
Although COVID-19 is increasing online traffic for some retailers, others have experienced surges in online shopping due to anxiety that has derived from the spread of the disease.
Many consumers in Britain have experienced disappointment when visiting local supermarkets to find nothing but empty shelves, fridges and freezers due to hoards of people stock pilling, which has led to several retailers imposing limitations on the number of items that consumers can buy. For example, UK grocery store Morrisons has imposed a three-item restriction on all items in-store to ensure that all shoppers have access to essential items, Nate Smith, Group Manager of Product Marketing for Adobe Analytics said, “Stores are running out of basic necessity items like toilet paper and hand sanitizer and we think that is a significant driver of online shopping at the moment. Furthermore, people are also trying to avoid large gatherings and public places, and it’s easy to see why online shopping for COVID-19 related items is up. Citizens around the world are taking Coronavirus very seriously, and taking measures to protect themselves and loved ones.
Consumers switch to online shopping
With citizens obligated to stay at home and avoid public places, many e-commerce retailers will experience an increase in traffic. In a survey of more than 2,200 marketers this week (conducted by Econsultancy and Marketing Week), 71% of UK marketers predicted that there would be an increase in e-commerce activity due to the coronavirus outbreak. However, e-commerce consultant Dan Barker highlights the differences in impact across various retail categories such as garden furniture and crafting doing well, apart from fashion, which is experiencing a dip right now. However, UK grocers are now feeling the strain in meeting high demands online since many of them are struggling to create delivery windows for their customers which have led to some retailers shutting down their mobile app’s so that they can solely focus on taking orders from their websites.
Last week, UK online grocery retailer Ocado was forced to shut down its mobile app and turn customers away due to the extraordinary demand for online shopping which drove it to breaking point. The company experienced a 1000 per cent jump rate in site traffic, which led the company to advise customers not to wait as they didn’t have any delivery slots available for the next few days. Following this, the company decided to pause its “reserved” guaranteed delivery service to ensure that they have enough food stocked for the public.
Online sales increase amidst COVID-19 outbreak
Insight platform Contetnsquare carefully analysed over 1,400 websites, 1.8bn anonymised user sessions and 50m transactions in its data to identify how shoppers are buying and how that behaviour is changing over time.
Contentsqure established that over the two past weeks throughout the beginning and the end of the period, they discovered that premium online grocery purchases had increased by 26% on grocery websites and 27% on healthcare products. However, customers were spending less money on travel planning websites, which were down by 20%. Furthermore, they also found that underwear, lingerie and sex toys sales had raised by 35%, and sales and sports equipment was down by a third (28%).
As there’s been a boost in online sales for some industries, others have been suffering including travel, hotel and tourism bookings which are down despite its efforts to attract people with discounts. Sales for sports equipment have also dropped off in the last two weeks. In contrast to the increase in expenditure on home furnishings and lingerie.
This ability to pull these types of insights together in real-time is crucial for companies as it allows them to respond with changes in relation to stock or on-site promotion so that they can provide their customers with products that they need.
