E-commerce booms as regulations continue
When asked in May 2020 about general lifestyle changes due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), approximately 62% of U.S. adults surveyed reported going to the store less. Another 52% reported an increase in online shopping. This shift from physical shopping carts to digital shopping carts is one of several precautions the public has started taking since infections surged across the country. To avoid virus transmission in crowded stores, more than 20% of U.S. consumers said they purchased items online more often in March 2020, compared with those who had never used an e-commerce service before. Even people say they've felt more motivated to buy items online this year. Awakening of crisis.
Looking at the segments that have seen the fastest rise in consumer demand, fashion is becoming more popular when it comes to online shopping, with 8 out of 10 U.S. shoppers saying they were buying the same amount or more of these products as of November 2020. This stands out as the product category that has seen the biggest shift. Sales of items such as travel gear and swimwear have plummeted as a result of travel bans and other containment measures imposed by governments.
During the first months of the pandemic, household and hygiene products such as toilet paper and hand sanitizer were in high demand. For example, disposable gloves were the fastest growing e-commerce category in March 2020, followed by bread machines and cold medicine. But once the most dire period of the outbreak passed, demand for essential goods subsided. In 2021, health and beauty remains one of the most popular categories that consumers will continue to buy online even after restrictions are lifted, alongside apparel and home goods.
From Big Bang to Big Crunch
2020 and 2021 were some of the best years ever for U.S. e-commerce. Online retail sales have skyrocketed, and no time in the past decade has he been more successful in increasing online spending than in the second quarter of 2022. Suddenly, about 12 million new U.S. users were choosing to add the items they wanted to their online carts instead of just going to a brick-and-mortar store. In terms of online shopping penetration, usage has increased by 4 percentage points since 2019.
However, not everything was rosy. This rapid growth was followed by even more dire times. In 2021, demand for products was higher than ever and there were signs of supply chain disruption, resulting in delivery delays and increased shipping costs. Even before the outbreak of Russia's war in Ukraine, many developed countries were experiencing inflation, a trend that worsened in 2022. E-commerce, an industry once thought to be less affected by price hikes, is now being significantly affected.
Once stores opened permanently, online demand atrophied, and many e-commerce companies that were experiencing unprecedented growth decided this was no longer sustainable. Some of the most used online shopping platforms in the United States, including Amazon, GoPuff, and Shopify, have announced layoffs affecting thousands of employees in the United States. As of late 2022, it remains to be seen whether big tech companies choose to retrench now due to unfavorable market conditions, only to quickly return to the growth trajectory seen since the pandemic boom.
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