Online movement over physical movement
With the actual physical movement being hampered, a major part of the business has shifted to e-commerce. A spike in the number of orders placed with such online stores points to the fact that people are increasingly relying on e-commerce to fulfill their essential needs. In order to combat this increased demand, certain e-commerce players have taken swift actions, such as hiking up their delivery drivers’ hourly pay and also offering a raise in their overtime pay. However, any consumer today is judging a brand’s value and opting for service only after being satisfied with its hygiene and sanitation practices. Thus, customers are constantly searching for brands that can offer a consistent standard of service, while also taking full accountability for their servicing staff.
The fear of public spaces and human contact is promptly increasing, steering consumers towards offline to online equivalents of existing services. Brands like Grofers and BigBasket for ordering groceries are gaining popularity. Gyms and fitness centres such as Cult. Fit is constantly working on their mobile application to provide a hassle-free experience to their members by offering online tutorials and live energy tracking meters. Web-based platforms such as Practo are beginning to attract people, who are looking for online medical consultations. The extended quarantine will also force the consumers to adopt secondary channels, specifically related to high-involvement items such as cars, electronics, and other luxury goods, where physical experience at the time of purchase will be replaced by web searching.
This behavioral change will also be observed in the case of recreational services, where customers will demand dynamic, relevant, and new-age forms of entertainment at their homes instead of wanting to visit public spaces for the same. This pandemic will push the consumer to shift his behavior in a way that will leave little room for interpersonal relations and will replace it with a high level of digital media consumption.
Delivery as the only touch-point
The Indian last-mile delivery market is growing at a CAGR of around 10%, aided by the growth in e-commerce, hyper-local, and offline to online industries. Further considering the effect that this epidemic will have on consumer behavior, the post-Coronavirus world will start moving towards a digital economy in a highly accelerated manner. Human interactions and interpersonal experiences will then remain limited to the last-mile logistics services. With new work from home policies surfacing, new entrepreneurs moving away from traditional marketplaces, and consumers wanting doorstep deliveries, the last mile logistics companies will be bearing the burden of commuting on behalf of the professionals of tomorrow.
Even before this pandemic, we knew that the customer has a tendency to attribute the entire end-to-end experience to a brand, even if the brand partners with vendors (for payment, supply, or delivery) to provide the experience. Thus, image-conscious brands will now be especially interested in closely monitoring the delivery experience. In order to do so, businesses will be looking for better delivery partners and vendors, who will be able to provide an assured at-the-door experience along with meeting the increased hygiene needs. Even those organizations which currently use their own runners for ad-hoc tasks will start looking for reliable partners to outsource these services.
A long-term effect of this quarantine will be seen in the interpersonal transactions of individuals as well. People will start looking for services that can assist them in their day-to-day tasks, such as picking up or dropping off some goods for friends or family. The realization of health risk embedded in human-to-human contact will motivate them to transfer this risk to a reliable third-party carrier, rather than bearing it themselves.
This era of social distancing will bring delivery services to the forefront. It will necessitate businesses to scale up in a highly ethical and sustainable way. Only those organizations which can quickly adapt to changes and provide consistent and comprehensive services in a safe and trusted manner will be able to survive in the post-pandemic economy.
Read more: https://www.pidge.in/social-distancing-and-its-impact-on-consumer-behavior/