Slightly over a year ago, it was widely agreed that COVID-19 was here to alter life as we knew it. The general talk changed from “return to normal” and became “new normal”.
As the vocabulary shifted from unprecedented to unusual and now unpredictable, we have seen closed shops, reduced hours, and social-distancing requirements and eventually strong brands succumbing to economic stress.
In a post-pandemic world, the nagging question is therefore, “which of these changes is likely to stick around?”
Countless articles have been written about the effects of the pandemic and the changes brought on by the health crisis for both businesses and consumers alike.
The stay at home economy brought about shoe-string budgets for households. Shopping in malls and generally finding one’s way to a business’ physical premises adds extra expenses and also increases the likelihood of getting infected. As such, online shopping was widely adapted.
Resilient enterprises have enabled people to shop when they want, how they want, and where they want by moving online. Adoption of sub genres of e-commerce such as social commerce and mobile commerce have extensively increased sales channels. No longer do businesses have to invest in websites to sell online given the popularity of social media marketplaces.
Nonetheless, understanding what consumers want is at the heart of moving your brand from resilience to remarkable.
Knowing what your customers want is at the heart of building effective online marketing strategies. Using analytics tools such as Facebook Business Suite or Pesapal’s Duka Manager, you can easily analyze and understand your operations & marketing strategies that are working.
The dramatic online shopping trends have highlighted the need for business owners to act swiftly. By creating a Pesapal account, you can integrate your merchant dashboard to your point-of-sale systems and export the necessary data such as the fast moving items.
Remarkable industries that have successfully followed consumer trends are household appliances, electronics, furniture stores and education. By working with Pesapal, these sectors have unlocked the full value of insights in making them actionable, real time and at scale. Thus able to strategically alter their product offering and pricing.
A few of the hurdles, however, for facilitating online shopping are processing online payments, preventing online fraud, and providing a frictionless online experience for users.
Big tech has gotten bigger with players like Facebook creating marketplaces, and Google & Apple joining fintech. This has created a parity between businesses that are not equal in the spectrum of online shopping trends.
Pesapal’s tailor made solutions cater to businesses of all sizes across all sectors. The various e-commerce payment solutions vary depending on the platform to be used (website vs. social media) and the targeted audience (international traveller vs. local buyer).
Pesapal’s gateway not only provides an omnichannel for various modes of payment (VISA cards, bank transfer, MasterCard , AMEX or mobile money) but also comprehensive fraud prevention measures.
In conclusion, reviewing the online shopping trends over the past 12 months makes it clear that digital adoption by businesses is the surest way to thrive.
