COVID-19 is an unprecedented virus that has caused an unprecedented situation in the world. Primarily traditional businesses like hotels, restaurants, malls, shops, and other physical retail and B2B stores have been adversely affected due to Corona.
Incidentally, some of the online businesses which are associated with the traditional ones are too affected like Oyo rooms have again recently laid off more than 700 of its employees due to the losses amid COVID-19 and to sustain in the market. MakeMyTrip has witnessed an unprecedented plunge in its revenues by 82% due to the pandemic.
We haven’t seen such a situation like this before neither these businesses have seen it.
But how are they getting adversely affected?
Because of consumers. Consumers are the main drivers of the businesses and if the consumers will stop buying then the business will start collapsing and will suffer losses. That’s what is happening with the traditional businesses and some of the businesses which are associated with the traditional businesses.
Amid this pandemic, most of the consumers prefer buying online and entertaining themselves online. Nobody wants to go out unnecessarily and especially for leisure activities like watching movies, touring, going to malls, etc. Most of the booking which happens in the resorts and hotels are from the tourists. Now if people will not go for the touring amid this pandemic then obviously they will not book any of the hotels, resorts, full tourism packages, etc and also they will not go out for dining.
Now though I said leisure activities, people also prefer buying daily necessary items online. Interestingly, people have become habituated to buying items online and have become a little bit tech-savvy too owing to the high usage of gadgets including smartphones and computers for entertainment and almost fulfillment of every need.
Today consumers have also become frugal about spending and have started focussing on the needs rather than wants maybe because now many of them are worried about their future and job as we all have been hearing about layoffs from some of the companies. However, saving money by stop spending lavishly is anyway good. Thereby the consumption patterns have changed and people have become more conscious about what to spend on and where to spend.
According to a survey by Deloitte India and a report, the same thing which I have discussed earlier has been discussed here too. Consumers are refraining from buying unnecessary things for the home and are mostly focussing only on necessary items that are in need. The people who use to spend quite lavishly and spend on unnecessary items has reduced from 78 percent in wave-2 to 66 percent in wave-3 and that shows the consumer is slowly taking conscious and not drastic decisions.
Almost 64 percent of purchasers said they will purchase from brands that have reacted well to the emergency. The Indian customer is in this way faithful to the interest satisfaction and validness of brands substantially more than brand reliability during the emergency.
Purpose to utilize computerized administrations has seen an ascent with 44 percent of respondents liable to utilize it for staple goods, 27 percent for virtual medical checkups, 36 percent for practice programs, 52 percent for video conferencing with loved ones, 47 percent for streaming amusement, and 53 percent for installment applications/administrations.
Upwards of 51 percent of respondents feel the pattern of web-based purchasing and pickup in-store is a more secure choice, while 37 percent of respondents feel that it’s quicker than shopping in the store
Almost 77 percent of purchasers need to restrict the utilization of public travel and 70% evading ride-hailing choices through and through and 79 percent of customers have an expectation to possess another vehicle and 73 percent state they like to keep the current vehicle.
