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Doing business in the online environment has become a rollercoaster. Strong e-shops often saw an increase or only a minimal decrease in sales during the corona crisis. At the same time, smaller retailers who have not yet succeeded and now know how to increase their sales can also be visible – it depends, of course, on the segment. This situation in the world is not taken lightly by the governments of different countries and they are therefore implementing even the toughest measures, such as restrictions on retails.
Segment comparison
SimilarWeb compared different segment categories for the period December 2019 – March 2020 in the following chart (specific segments travel, transport, food and beverage delivery, retail, e-shops and events).
In most of these segments we can see a significant drop in their growth. We see an increase only in the food delivery segment.
Source: Similarweb.com
They also focused on the statistics of individual segments in more detail, pointing out that the largest drop (more than 20%) was recorded in accommodation services, ticket sales and car rental. This is more or less logical, because closing borders does not allow people to travel and all accommodation services must be closed to the public.
On the contrary, traffic and interest in government websites, media, streaming services, social networks, and online electronics, food, and drug stores have increased rapidly. At the time of the corona crisis, people are interested in up to date informations and the wording of the new regulations, which will be heard in the media or on the websites of government institutions.
In terms of socialization, people rely on communication exclusively through mobile devices or social networks. The use of online voice services, such as Zoom or Skype, has increased significantly.
The Neil Patel website survey also confirms that segments such as pharmaceuticals, healthcare, food, finance and the media have about 5 to 35% higher traffic growth on their websites.
Source: Neilpatel.com
An interesting feature of this graph is, for example, the decline in advertising, respectively. promotional services. Business owners are becoming skeptical at this time and do not want to spend money on promotion because they think it will not be effective and efficient anyway.
The opposite, however, is the owners of e-shops, who in this situation use the space to be visible and maintain their position as the market leader while the competition is asleep. Those who have kept their campaigns running are in most cases with increases in orders.
Paul Marsden, a psychologist from the University of Arts London cit. In a CNBC article, explained this phenomenon of changes in consumer shopping behavior in various segments as follows. Buying during a period of panic can be understood very simply as a kind of game with our three basic psychological needs.
These needs are:
- autonomy (taking control of our actions)
- kinship (need to do something beneficial for the environment, for our families, acquaintances)
- competence (the need to feel like a responsible and intelligent consumer who makes the right choice, buys only the necessary products and avoids spending on uselessness)
Like previous surveys, the Civis study conducted by Valassis focused on the study of dominant and defeated segments at the time of the Covid-19 coronavirus. According to this study, up to 42% of consumers shop more online, with a survey of 1,000 adult respondents in the United States.
Although consumers spend much more shopping online than before the coronavirus outbreak, their spending has shifted. These changes in their monthly expenses can be seen in the graph. We can therefore note that all the above researches agreed in the growth and decline of individual segments.
