IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON E-

COMMERCE
 University of Dhaka
Faculty of Business Studies
Department of International Business

Assignment on
Impact of Covid-19 on E-Commerce
Course Name: International
Economics
Course Code: IB-301
Submitted to:
Dr. Md. Kamal Uddin
Professor
Department of International Business
University of Dhaka

Submitted By:
Md. Towhidul Islam
Roll: BB-030-020
Batch: 11th
Section: B
Department of International Business
University of Dhaka
02 September, 2020

Dr. Md. Kamal Uddin

Professor
Department of International Business
University of Dhaka

Subject: Submission of Report on “Impact of Covid-19 on E-Commerce sector”.

Sir,
With due respect, here is the attached report entitled ‘Impact of Covid-19 on E-Commerce
sector’ that you asked us to conduct. This report highlights the change that took place in e-
commerce sector during the pandemic. Even at this crisis moment, this sector managed to
grow. Moreover, it helped people to stay inside.
I hope you find this report satisfactory.

Sincerely Yours,
Md. Towhidul Islam
ID: BB-030-020
Section B, 11th Batch
Department of International Business
University of Dhaka
Executive summary
As of today, with total case of 25,898,952 worldwide, people are kind of coping with new
normal. The COVID-19 pandemic is far more than a health crisis: it is affecting societies and
economies at their core. It is inevitable that system that we were used to, has changed.
Business pattern is one of the affected sides from the beginning of this pandemic. But inside,
there are one sector: e-commerce, that grown and also helped greatly to fight in this serious
moment. Existing e commerce giant like Amazon, Alibaba, Rakuten, etc. have grown over
the night. Besides, many more new online business are introduced. Peoples’ go-to-market
approach has changed. Before Covid-19, percentage of people engage in e-commerce was
46%. And, during Covid-19, it become 51%. Besides, in-field sales team percentage has
decreased from 55% to 21%. Another stat shows how e- commerce website traffic has
changed in this pandemic. In January 2020, e commerce website visits were 12.81 billion. In
March 2020, it raised into 14.34 billion. Most of the cases, business firms suffered due to
this unpredictable and unstoppable crisis. But e-commerce sector bloomed even in this
tough situation. This indicates the new normal and new way of our modernization.

Table of Content
s
Introduction..........................................................................................1
Objectives of the Study......................................................................1
An Overview of the Situation...............................................................2
Major Findings......................................................................................3
SERP volatility chart........................................................................4
Book and Literature ecommerce websites’ traffic..........................4
Health ecommerce websites’ traffic...............................................5
Home décor ecommerce websites’ traffic......................................6
Retail websites’ traffic.....................................................................7
Top list of retail websites’ by traffic................................................7
Coronavirus impact on online traffic of selected industries...........8
US ecommerce growth at the start of pandemic...........................9
Conclusion..........................................................................................11
Bibliography........................................................................................12
Introduction
The pandemic of COVID-19, the social dimension and staying at home, has pushed
consumers to head to online shopping. This affects the demand and uncertain supply chain
issues for the e-commerce industry. COVID-19 can also affect older merchants like Walmart,
who are experiencing a drop in informal shopping, supply chain disruptions, an increase in
the purchase of basic toiletries, groceries, and other products. The term commerce here
means referring to any sort of business transaction, which involves the transfer of
information through the internet. E commerce means using the transaction and or
commercial transaction, which involve exchange of value in return of product or services.
The World Trade Organization indicated that it is the right time for e-commerce to save the
world economy and that it is to intervene with vigor and vitality and prove e-commerce of
its importance and effectiveness in the field of trade and online shopping (WTO,2020).
Shares of traditional trade have become volatile and in marked decline due to the spread of
COVID-19, and this will be a strong reason for the willingness of each of these traders of
these traditional markets to move towards trade via the Internet in order to preserve the
rest of its shares and maintain its commercial field and its success in the market.

Objectives of the Study

This study aims to find out:
 How consumer shift from physical visit in shop to online shop
 How online platform changed during coronavirus time
 Before and after situation of some e-commerce giant
 How the consumer demand has been changing within the past few weeks
 Which industries have seen the biggest spike in traffic during the pandemic
 Which products top the list of most searched online during the pandemic

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An Overview of the Situation
Coronavirus is considered as one of the most infectious diseases which mainly occurs after
contaminating the human with the rigorous acute syndrome of respiratory issues. The
particular disease has been evolved like a pandemic public health crisis because of extensive
spread within the number of nations. The pandemic of COVID-19 is accelerating its
transition towards digital commerce in a very significant manner. The customers of the
nation are expected to be practicing social distancing. The economy of the nation and the
world has been influenced significantly. Based on this particular pandemic the people of the
nation have imposed a higher level of limitations upon the individuals as well as on the
businesses. This virus has incurred a large number of calamities in the world economy.
The behavior of the customer is also another important factor in this study. As per the
significant impact of this pandemic the customers would take necessary precautions and will
more likely to act accordingly. Therefore, the behavior of the customer mainly influences
the demand of e-commerce business activities to a great extent. The purchase behavior of
the customers would be influenced due to the lockouts in the nations since there would be
a lack of availability of products and services in the various outlets and stores. For this
particular reason, the customer should depend mainly on the e-commerce platform in order
to fulfill the essential necessities required for their survival.
The e-commerce business is being driven into significant limitations due to the pressure
from the pandemic of COVID-19. The rise or the downfall in the demand of the particular
online platform is significantly dependent on the widespread of COVID-19 and also on the
customer's behavior towards this global issue. The online business is mainly dependent on
these two factors which would influence its overall demand in the market. For this particular
reason, the customers have shifted towards the ecommerce approaches. This is considered
as the only means through which the population of the nation can able to survive this
pandemic situation. Increased numbers of audiences are trying to gain benefits from the
digital grocery.

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Major Findings
The coronavirus (Covid-19) has a wide-reaching effect on e-commerce, technology, business
travel, and the economy. It has already taken the lives of many and is also taking. In addition
to this, every country follows the lockdown procedures as a means of preventing measures.
It seems both private and the public sector are messed up due to this virus. The fact is
unavoidable that the effect of novel coronavirus will have a significant effect on the country,
economy, and society. The increasing threat of novel coronavirus is a public health crisis and
hampers the macro economy as a whole. It has also cut off the supply chain of the business.
The production and the manufacturers are expected to be hampered more. Factories in
China, the United States and other countries are the central manufacturing hub for many
businesses globally. Therefore, any disruption will simply have repercussions.
The online business is finding it difficult to sell their products on this huge demand and also
facing tremendous issues while sourcing their products from those central manufacturing
countries. China mainly deals with the machinery, equipment, instruments and
communication-related equipment. Any disruptions in these sectors will simply affect other
country business. Further, the lockdown has also obstructed the import and export facilities
in the country. All is the impact of the coronavirus. In addition to e-commerce business the
automotive, metals and metals products, chemicals, communication equipment, rubber and
plastics, and office machinery sectors are also got disrupted. Many online businesses are
facing shortages of the products which are unable to satisfy the demand of the customers
over there. This may also increase the price of the products in the coming futures after
everything gets well.
E-commerce in various regions such as America, Europe, Asia and the rest of the world has
been affected by the new COVID-19 epidemic. Countries in which most cases were recorded
include Italy, Spain, Germany, France in Europe and China in Asia. Chinese company Alibaba,
a giant provider of e-commerce services, has struggled to maintain growth rates during the
economic slowdown in its domestic market and faced the uncertainty of coronavirus
outbreaks. Major companies affected in the market include Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.,
Amazon.com, Inc., Qoo10 Pte. Ltd., JD.com, Walmart Inc., Shopify, Rakuten Group, and eBay
Inc., And others. For example, Amazon made some huge investment in one-day shipping.

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Now, let us take a look at some graph and charts based of on-field research. This will clear
the idea of Covid-19 impact on e-commerce.

SERP volatility chart

Book and Literature ecommerce websites’ traffic

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It is not unusual that the Books and literature category is seeing the overall highest increase
in traffic. We have also noticed the continuing rise of audiobooks with Scribd and Audible
taking spots within the top list. Whereas, sites like Scholastic and Chegg are now a must-visit
for students forced to stay and study at home.

Health ecommerce websites’ traffic

Health ecommerce brands see the second-highest traffic increase across all industries. Big
pharmacy chains are absolutely dominating the online searches— Walgreens, CVS, Riteaid,
and others. However, we can spot some newcomers as well. The third most visited site is
Goodrx, a telemedicine startup that allows tracking prescription drug prices and discounts
on medications.

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 Home décor ecommerce websites’ traffic
With the shelter in place regulation, your house becomes your office, your school, a
restaurant, and all those places you used to visit. So, many consumers turn to search for
home decor — for pleasure or purely utilitarian purposes. Once again, we didn’t notice
anything unusual about the user preferences for home decor brands - IKEA, HomeDepot,
and Pottery Barn are among the most visited websites.

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 Retail websites’ traffic

In comparison to previous industries, it may seem like a 5% increase in traffic is nothing, but
retail is the category with over 14 billion monthly traffic. So, just within three months, it
gained over 1.5 billion new visitors.

Top list of retail websites’ by traffic

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When almost all brick-and-mortar retail is shut down or considered dangerous to visit, all
the everyday necessities — from groceries to that new iPhone charger — have to be
purchased online. So, it is not surprising to only see the ecommerce blue chips within the
top 10. Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Apple, and AliExpress — all of these giants are absolute
winners of this coronavirus crisis.

Coronavirus impact on online traffic of selected industries

The global coronavirus pandemic is affecting consumer behavior worldwide. In the week
ending June 14, online traffic in the supermarket segment increased by 60.7 percent
compared to the reference period in January and February 2020. Online visits in the tourism
sector decreased by 47.5 percent during the measured period.

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 US ecommerce growth at the start of pandemic

The pandemic of COVID-19 has forced the retail outlets of the nation to remain closed. This
situation has identified to be unparalleled disruption of many businesses. When the number
of major cities has declared self-isolated, lock-downs and following social distancing have
directed towards the enhancement in the activities of the user. The users have enhanced
their activities upon the online applications concerned with shopping. As per the research
studies it has been found out that the usage of online retail applications and e-commerce
mobile apps has experienced a significant rise inactive and new user. The rise in the
numbers of the online audience has been evidenced from the primary week of March of the
financial year 2020. Online wholesale mobile applications display an alike trend. It has been
observed that there is development in the total number of active users, new users and pays
out during the second week in the month of March 2020. It is also anticipated by the
researchers that the proportion of active audiences in the online platform would be more as
compared with the months of January and February. The majority of the development of
new and active audiences in online mobile applications is mainly on websites that offer food
delivery services and facilities. In the nations of South East Asia, for example, Malaysia,
Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong have experienced increase online traffic on the
food delivery websites. The increase in demand and traffic could be evidently analyzed by a

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researcher from the initial period of March month a significant rise in the number of active
and new customers and he stated that the rate of increasing traffic has been increased with
the passage of every day from month of march 2020.

One can assume that as people stay indoors, ecommerce businesses are bound to have a
field day. In reality, it entirely depends on your product inventory whether you sell essential
goods, medical devices, or consumer electronics and so on. The impact on ecommerce
businesses also depend on how much they rely on the global supply chain. Since the
pandemic has initially brought China’s manufacturers to a halt, everyone from ecommerce
businesses to global retailers are taking a big hit. Some ecommerce businesses are forced to
suspend their operations and even close up shop as they can’t restock their inventory.
However, other ecommerce businesses are unable to cope with so much demand as people
continue to stock up on essential goods. Overall, the global ecommerce industry is facing
mixed experiences.

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Conclusion
With the effect of coronavirus, all the shipments processes are hindered which have lower
down the economic growth of the country. Countries are trying to bring back their product
from other countries apart from china only to continue their business process. This study
aimed to depict the effects of the spread of the Corona virus on global e-commerce
companies. The results indicate that the global e-commerce market is affected by the
spread of the coronavirus. Coronavirus compelled to customers to use internet and make it
habit in their daily routine. Furthermore, many challenges facing by retailers in e-commerce,
such as extend the delivery time, difficulty face during movement control, social distance
and lockdown. The process of shipment and supply is quite slow now, but still people buying
because they do not have another alternative. Hence, people moving towards technology
due to virus. Furthermore, some products are very high in demand in market. Even retailers
cannot fulfill the customer’s demands such as hand sanitizers, toilet papers, disposable
gloves, grocery, and dairy products. COVID-19 has significant impact on e-commerce of the
world and in some cases negative impact but overall e-commerce is growing rapidly because
of virus.

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Bibliography
https://finance.yahoo.com/

https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/egypt/

https://www.wto.org/

https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/

https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/rese_04may20_e.htm

www.visualcapitalist.com/shoppers-buying-online-ecommerce-covid- 19/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105486/coronavirus-traffic-impact-industry/

https://www.semrush.com/blog/ecommerce-covid-19/

https://www.roirevolution.com/blog/2020/08/coronavirus-and-ecommerce/

https://econsultancy.com/stats-roundup-coronavirus-impact-on-marketing-ecommerce-
advertising/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/08/covid19-pandemic-social-shift-ecommerce-
report/

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