E-commerce was already growing in traction prior to Covid-19; however, the pandemic was an influential catalyst to the present-day popularity of e-commerce. In the UK, e-commerce has grown steadily, reaching £137.38bn last year, according to ONS data (Brad Ward, 2021)¹. But how did this happen and why did e-commerce become so popular? This article will discuss the value of e-commerce in our life during the Covid-19 pandemic and the post-pandemic era.

"E-commerce in a relatively short span of time, has become a big part of our lives and more so during the Covid-19 pandemic."

Oxford dictionary defines e-commerce as, “Commercial transactions conducted electronically on the internet.”² Today there are several online stores which operate this way. We all know of online stores and marketplaces like Amazon, Shopify, eBay but this is only the beginning of the list and I’m sure you can name a couple of other examples of e-commerce websites. Amazon is among the biggest online marketplace with a conservative net worth of $314.9 billion (Brenda Zhang, 2021).³ This only represents a small chunk of the current value of e-commerce, giving us a glimpse of its true potential of growth. 

One of the selling points of e-commerce is the ease and efficiency with which products and services are delivered to the consumers’ door. According to Parcel Monkey, “Most UK courier deliveries will arrive within 1-2 working days, depending on the service you book.”⁴

E-commerce in a relatively short span of time, has become a big part of our lives and more so during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has also changed the landscape of several sectors including the following.

Customers can now connect to the bank's electronic system via the internet and be in control of their finances using their personal electronic devices. The growth of e-commerce coupled with the advancement in information technology facilitated the growth in electronic banking.  On the other hand, the ease of being able to make payments online has further facilitated the growth of e-commerce creating a mutually beneficial relationship.

It is important to note the introduction of not only physical cards but also virtual/digital cards. Today, there are several different methods of paying whilst shopping on e-commerce websites, including mobile apps like Google Pay and Apple pay. In addition to these apps digital banking apps like Revolut, Curve, Monzo etc, have made banking and making digital payment much easier (Himanshu Bhavsar, 2019).⁵

More and more retail businesses are adapting to e-commerce either by operating their own websites or by selling their goods on digital marketplaces or both. Selling online also provides small businesses the opportunity to operate without having to maintain a physical outlet. Shopping has changed, both online and offline for consumers who are now able to browse websites, place orders and have the goods delivered to their doors. This level of convenience provides consumers with one more reason to shop electronically. High street retail businesses were already on the decline and pushed further into crisis mode during the Covid- 19 pandemic. More than 17,500 chain store outlets disappeared from high streets, shopping centres and retail parks across Great Britain last year as the Covid-19 pandemic spurred the worst decline on record.⁶ The impact of e-commerce on retail business is here to stay.

Marketing opportunities, like digital ads, social media platforms, email marketing, customer relation management tools among others have facilitated e-commerce. Traditional marketing has been replaced by digital marketing making it more accessible to businesses of all sizes. The influencer culture has changed the way products are endorsed. Having a digital presence has become a must for any businesses to reach customers far and wide. Websites or even social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. provide businesses the freedom to communicate with their customers easily and provide personalised experiences to their customers.

During the pandemic essential items like food experienced high demand whereas non-essential retailers selling items like clothes were forced to close stores and experienced a steep decline in physical sales.  People decided to shop for their groceries online to avoid the long queues at supermarkets which may have increased their chances of catching the virus. According to OECD (2020), “In the EU, retail sales via mail order houses or the Internet in April 2020 increased by 30% compared to April 2019, while total retail sales diminished by 17.9%” This suggests that during the pandemic customer attention was directed towards online shopping not only for convenience but as a matter of survival.

As we can see, the advantages and value offered by e-commerce are abundant. But how much value does it offer after the pandemic?

According to OECD (2020), “In the United Kingdom, the share of e-commerce in retail rose from 17.3% to 20.3% between the first quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2020, to then rise significantly to 31.3% between the first and second quarter of 2020.” This statistic highlights the effects that the pandemic had on the e-commerce industry. It is also important to note that prior to the pandemic, the popularity and use of e-commerce in the UK was already growing but the pandemic was a significant catalyst to where it is today. According to e-commerce news, “7.94% of GDP is made up by e-commerce sales.”

One of the reasons e-commerce is so valuable to our society today is because it saves us time as there's no need to physically travel to the store and queue to pay for your items. Customers are also able to find competitive deals by comparing the prices in different online stores. Also, since e-commerce has been around for enough time, people are now relying more on online shopping because they trust the payments ecosystem, meaning they trust that their issuing bank will be able to assist them in case they need to claim back their money for a product bought online.

The retail experience will keep on changing, as everything goes back to normal.  Online shopping will, however, continue to grow in the long term as retailer’s inevitably shift their focus, either solely or predominantly, to e-commerce. E-commerce will also be aided by technological advances like ; chatbots, voice assistants, augmented & virtual reality (innovative shopping experience), blockchain technology (new data security & payment method), drones & droids (next-level delivery system, new apps adapted for iOS and Android and faster internet connections like 5G.  These innovations will lead to the online shopping experience becoming more exciting and immersive leading to an unprecedented growth in the sectors.

¹https://www.salecycle.com/blog/featured/11-best-ecommerce-stats-2018-far/

²https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+ecommerce&oq=what+is+ecommer&aqs=chrome.0.0i433j0j69i57j0l7.5998j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

³https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/business/how-much-is-amazon-worth/

⁴https://www.parcelmonkey.co.uk/how-long#:~:text=The%20courier%20delivery%20time%20will%20be%201%2D3%20days,your%20parcel%20has%20been%20collected.

⁵https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/e-commerce-our-daily-life-dash-technologies-inc/

⁶https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/14/great-britain-high-streets-lost-more-than-17500-chain-stores-in-2020-covid