Internet Retailing

The world as we once knew it has transformed and consumers are experiencing rapid changes to the way they live, work and shop. To examine these changes, CommerceHub surveyed more than 1,500 consumers of various age groups to gauge consumer confidence and identify changing shopping patterns amid COVID-19 disruptions.

New research from Blue Yonder highlights how shopping behaviour has changed globally since the COVID-19 pandemic started. Blue Yonder surveyed 6,000 European adult consumers in April and 1,000 US adult consumers in both March and April.

What has struck me most about COVID-19 so far is the rapid business response to the crisis. Brands are switching up their game plan and capitalising on the e-commerce surge by going direct to consumer.

As the news that the UK government plans to begin re-opening some retail stores in June, many retailers were last night faced with the reality of another month of tough trading conditions.

But with this in mind, retailers have been, and continue to look at investing in and ramping up their online operations to ensure they have an effective platform that drives sales.

One of the biggest challenges faced by successful e-commerce operations stepping up to their first fulfilment centre will be minimising pick errors.

Signs of the green shoots of recovery for retailers were revealed in the latest data from the Covid-19 Retail Pulse from BounceX (soon to be Wunderkind), with week-on-week rises in website revenue, site visits and conversions.

The retail sector is in a state of flux. Whilst eCommerce sales might still be surpassing all expectations, many retail stores are still closed, awaiting Government guidance as to when they might be able to open again.

With many UK brick-and-mortar stores remaining closed, new data from commerce experience leader, Bloomreach, shows that retailers are closing the sales gap through their digital offerings – with online sales in the UK increasing 27% from the same time year-on-year and increasing by 23% from last week.

Go Instore is powering the Currys PC World ShopLive experience to enable staff to work from home, serve customers remotely and support the transition of store re-openings as lockdown restrictions are lifted.

Metapack, the eCommerce delivery technology provider, has announced that over 10 retailers have now deployed its Ship-from-Store solution, enabling them to transform physical stores into mini distribution centres and keep trading during the disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis.