How has Covid-19 Affected Online Shopping in UAE

Everyone is aware of the current Pandemic situation, which has suddenly made a pause kind of situation in everyone’s life all over the globe. UAE is one of the top flourishing online markets in the world, which has great potential and a deep penetration rate. In 2020, more than 95% of people in the UAE are using the internet, on their smartphones, laptops, tablets, and on other mobile devices.

Due to the COVID-19 situation, most of the countries in the world are not allowing their people to step out, so as UAE.

All these precautions is been done to minimize the effect of the virus. But, people have to come out of their homes for essential and non-essential shopping. Online shopping in UAE has positive and negative, both the impacts, as due to lockdown condition, everyone is trying to not to go out for shopping and buying online. But, due to uncertain overflow of customers and limited delivery restriction, products are taking multiple days to arrive at doorsteps, which is really odd.

There are many websites, which are crashing due to much more than the expected customer. One such recent example is bathandbodyworks.ae, which is a very renowned online market place for shopping candles, home fragrance, shops, moisturizers, and many more related things.

Same was the condition of noon, when they were facing a lot of orders, they stooped their extra 10% discount codes in UAE and KSA, and let it work in Egypt, to reduce the demand. Everything which went wrong and right was due to the uncertain situation of Coronavirus.

E-commerce Landscape

Due to the COVID-19 situation, online shopping sites are facing new challenges in customer behavior, supply chain, and customer purchasing power.

Just try thinking that what people must be buying these days, and what they are not buying. The most essential will be at the top and non-essential will be at the bottom.

• What people are buying - People are buying food, beverages, gifts, apparel, accessories, toys, home, garden.
• What people are not buying - Luggage, tickets, swim-wears and equipment, Gym stuff, travel gears, cameras.

Every popular store who is selling essential items has seen a good spike in numbers of online visitors to their website. But, it’s really hard to keep the essential products in stock, as due to COVID-19, one of the most affected sectors is Logistic, which has drastically affected the supply chain of the process.

Win Situation For Customers

It is a win situation for all the people who are shopping online. Around 70% of top online sellers are running a great sale for their customers. Many online shopping platforms are making their customers happy by providing free shipping. The discount rates are very high these days. People can easily get a huge discount on their favorite products.

Panic Buying

When the news of COVID-19 spread and it was finally declared a pandemic by WHO(world health organization), everyone starts stocking up, especially the essentials. Initially, medical supplies like masks and hand sanitizers went out of stock everywhere, offline, and online both. The same was the situation with food and other daily household essentials. Still, online shopping stores are struggling to keep up with demand, and supplies are a bit limited.

Change in Online Sale

As people started understanding the seriousness of the condition, everyone starts to practice social distancing, as a way to slow the process of the spread of COVID-19, which has created a great drop in physical store shopping. The online sale went up, as people start purchasing online more, to stay safe.

What Went Up

The grocery was the king of a spike in users and sales. The grocery online store has seen a sudden spike in the 2ND week of lockdown and still being up. At this time, everything went up in accordance to how essential they are. Medical, baby products, food & beverages, cleaning, were on top of the list of most selling categories online. Travel, auto, luxury were at the bottom.

We personally believe that the world has seen 5-10 years of digital growth in just 2 months. That means, online shopping has great potential and needs deep customer understanding.