Retail’s digital tsunami strikes
COVID-19 forced many industries to pivot to digital, and pivot quickly. The retail industry is no exception.
In the past few years (even pre-COVID), the retail industry had already seen a shift from offline stores to e-commerce as consumers started to buy more goods online. COVID-19 has only accelerated that move into a tsunami.
The lockdowns in 2020 played a huge role in accelerating the transition to digital shopping platforms. E-commerce became the only way that retailers could make their products readily available to consumers and the only means for companies to keep their business afloat.
Retailers now have no choice but to embrace digital.
Data from Singapore’s Department of Statistics show an undeniable increase in online retail sales from March 2020 to July 2020, the period when Singapore entered her COVID-19 Circuit Breaker.
Big e-commerce players like Lazada, Qoo10 and Shopee also saw a spike in platform sales. According to Vulcan Post, Shopee experienced an 82% increase in the number of user visits from 6 million visits in the first quarter of 2020, to 11 million visits in the second quarter of 2020.
Has the e-commerce future arrived “early” for the retail industry?
Indeed, Singapore has witnessed an increase in emerging small businesses online, some online only.
By having an online presence, companies are able to reach significantly more consumers as opposed to relying on human traffic visiting a physical store.
With retailers adding online channels and using technology to their advantage — products, customer service chat, doorstep delivery, personal online shopping and even virtual product try-ons can make your business available to consumers 24/7, all around the world.
Equipping the Retail Workforce for the e-Commerce Present
With operations shifting online, it is necessary that retail training and HR processes be taken digital as well — to increase efficiency and reduce cost for retailers.
Training new hires online isn’t as daunting of a task as it might seem. In fact, it saves companies the trouble, time and money of organising physical training sessions. The training content would also need to change. E.g. Following the shift from physical to online stores, staff need to be retrained to learn how to serve customers online rather than face-to-face.
With ArcLab, creating training modules has been made simple with our easy-to-use interface. Disseminate the modules digitally to all staff at a few clicks of the button and our system automatically tracks their performances and stores all necessary records.
You can use ArcLab ‘s Customer Service 101 series to get you started.
We’ve built ArcLab to be seamless and fuss-free to start. Explore the limitless possibilities with ArcLab platform and get started on your digital transformation journey today.
If you need any help at all, reach out at growth@arclab.io
