COVID-19 Pushed E-commerce Further
E-commerce was growing fast globally before the COVID-19 outbreak. However, the pandemic further pushed the growth. Many retailers shifted to online because of the stay-at-home orders. From groceries to furniture, we can buy almost everything online today. The visual content above explores how the global shopping activities changed over the course of 2020, pulling data from Bazaarvoice. In this visual content, we focus on increases and decreases in product page views and order count of over 11,500 brands and retailers to observe the e-commerce trend during the pandemic. First, we look at overall changes in shopping activity. Then we break down the data by category to see different reactions in different industries.
96% Increase in Order Count Soon after the Pandemic
WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic on 11th March 2020. The following month saw a spike both in page views and order count. In April, the order count jumped up by 96% while page views by 88%, on a year-over-year basis. The high growth trend continued for next few months. Order count had the highest year-over-year growth in April and page views came to its peak in May. Around this time, many countries including Australia started restricting their citizens’ movements by implementing stay-at-home orders. During lockdown, it is understandable that people spend more time scrolling for shopping.
Most Industries Grew, Except for a Few
Next, we look at the data by breaking them down into 20 different categories. Out of the 20 industries, 18 industries had more page views in 2020 than in 2019. Significantly, 9 industries increased page views by more than 50% on a year-over-year basis. However, there were two industries that lost their page views: “Luggage and Bags” and “Religious and Ceremonial”. Their growth rate was -15% and -20%, respectively.
For order count, 19 out of the 20 had growth rates higher than 20%. Moreover, 11 industries increased order count by more than 50%. Interestingly, while “Luggage and Bags” struggled here as well, at -20%, “Religious and Ceremonial” saw one of the highest increases, at an 85% growth. The apparent reason for this downward trend for “Luggage and Bags” would be the travel restrictions imposed in many countries; we clearly don’t need luggage and bags during lockdown. Then what pushed up “Religious and Ceremonial”? Probably, many people turned to faith and spirituality in pandemic. A report from BBC suggests “the pandemic has made it easier for people to explore their spirituality.”
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