4 Tips for Online Retailers During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all sectors of economy, including eCommerce. While many businesses are struggling to stay afloat, a lot of online retailers can benefit from the increasing popularity of online shopping. However, even they face certain challenges during this unusual time and have to find ways to respond to the changes brought by the virus. Here are some tips that online retailers may find useful in the current situation.
Keep Track of Government Recommendations (And Follow Them)
Even though some of the restrictions imposed by your national government may seem unreasonable, you still must comply with them. Don’t let the increased demand for your services and the opportunity to reap profits from the situation make you forget that the health of your employees (and your own health as well!) must be your top priority.
If your employees can work from home, let them work from home; don’t be an overbearing boss who insists their employees need to be closely monitored. Trust your team to do their jobs even when they’re not in the office.
Of course, to keep your business going, some of your employees will have to go to work during the quarantine, because someone needs to fulfill and ship orders. And it is your responsibility with the employer to ensure their safety. You must provide your employees with masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, cleaning supplies, disinfectant wipes, etc. to minimize the risk of exposure to the virus. And, of course, you mustn’t make them go to work if they’re feeling unwell, for your own sake as much as theirs.
If you run a small online shop from your home, please take care of yourself. Nothing is worth more than your health. Avoid overexerting yourself and minimize contacts with other people. For example, if you’re used to shipping orders from a post office location, it’s high time to discover online shipping labels and package pickup. Not only will it help you protect yourself from the infection, it will save your time and money.
Be Flexible and Adaptable
Your business doesn’t exist in a vacuum: you work with suppliers, shipping companies, and other businesses that may have been affected by the current situation. This means that you will face, and probably already have faced, certain logistic and delivery challenges. To keep your business running as smoothly as possible, you need to keep up to date with the information that might impact it in order to be proactive towards changes and challenges. Deliveries are most likely to take longer than usual, so you need to be ready for it.
Be Open and Communicate
It is very important to stay open with both your employees and your customers. The pandemic will affect your business one way or another, and you shouldn’t try to hide it. Being as transparent as possible with your employees and customers is the key to ensuring their loyalty during these difficult times. Update your terms and conditions if necessary, and keep your customers updated on the situation using social media and any other communication channels you can think of.
Seize the Opportunities You’ve Been Given
A lot of businesses choose to focus on defensive tactics in order to keep afloat. But if you want to emerge from the crisis unscathed, or only slightly weekend, you should seek the emerging opportunities and embrace them. For example, you can try new marketplaces, boost your digital marketing efforts to stimulate and sustain demand, use sales and promotions to stimulate consumers (but nothing drastic), optimize and update your shop (revise product pages, take steps to improve user experience, try new modules, etc.), develop a shopping app, check out new marketing solutions, payment methods and delivery options, etc. Your customers’ needs, shipping habits and behaviors will probably change, and you need to adapt to these changes and, ideally, predict them before your competitors do.
