The Coronavirus pandemic has affected every single life existing on the, single-handedly. Lockdown, isolation, and social distancing have lately become the new normal for the entire human race. Affecting the lives directly, it has also affected businesses. Today, the very basic activities of a business and its interactions are finding new ways to communicate.
The latest reports by GlobalData predict the changing consumer behavior and cash becoming obsolete from the market. It is predicted that with the onset of the novel Coronavirus acceptance of cash will decline to 4.5% between 2019 to 2023. It was earlier predicted to be between 7.6% in the USA alone.
Ravi Sharma, Banking and Payments Analyst at GlobalData, said: “The decline in overall spending will be somewhat offset by a rise in online payments. Wary consumers will stay home and use the online channel to purchase goods in order to avoid exposing themselves to the disease.”
Another report by Mckinsey and co. suggests that most countries have seen more than 10% rise in their consumers’ shifting to online shopping. And, they are expected to do so even after the brick and mortar setup reopens.
With over 60% of consumers changing their shopping behavior, for businesses, accepting the new normal has become an immensely demanding task.
In order to come back in pace with the sales graph, businesses across the globe are trying to accept the new sales platform and swiftly taking a drift towards online presence. It is a step towards getting back to the loyal buyers and simultaneously targeting the newer ones.
An online presence for a business can be initiated with few steps. Such as creating a website/app, automating business workflow, interacting with buyers online, getting them aware of your changing business processes, and helping them understand it better with constant support.
The pandemic is nowhere close to getting over, and economies are slowly trying to abide by the new norms and businesses are following new trends to slowly make a comeback.
Now, that you are also planning to pull up that shutter and start commencing back your business (that has been shut for more than 4 months now). Here are some of the key practices that will help you to rise after the pandemic ends-
- websites/apps will mobilize online presence:
The first step towards building a gateway to sales is reaching customers through the most adapted medium- ONLINE. Today 6 out of 10 businesses are moving online to automate their sales. Websites/apps work as your virtual store for your clients. A fully accustomed UI/UX app will build an experience for your customers and help you reach inside their doors. There are many website development companies that are building highly interactive websites/apps that you can look towards to get your website developed with complete guidance. Now, understand the basics of a website inclusive-- Describe who you are
- Choose your existing brand name as your domain name
- Opt for an easily-navigated site map
- A clear and strong call to action
- Contact information
- List all your products/services
- User-friendly design
- Secure hosting platform
The above description is the basic structure for getting a website customized for an eCommerce business. There are multiple languages and coding that help you create a seamless website with a complete sitemap to accomplish sales. Choose wisely by conducting full research beforehand about the nitty-gritty of the importance of websites in increasing sales. Find out the best website to get a website/app developed by checking out their reviews, experience, expertise, and packages. Quick tip- you can start conducting your research by searching online about the top website development companies/services and many more to find relevant results.
- Cashless Transactions to pace up with the ongoing trend:
The world is feared. It is trying to avoid any object that might act as a carrier. Therefore, people are isolating themselves and trying to cope up with any activity online. Thus you’re finding more online orders and prepayments to the purchases.
In order to take this up consciously, you need to find a suitable online invoicing and payment software that can customize with your business and smoothly automate your sales with invoice generation, inventory management, payments processing, and finally receipt generation. Online payments help companies save extra hours and efforts by reducing excessive costs involved in manual invoicing and transactions.
It also allows you to attract clients and initiate instant transactions if you integrate your website with multiple payment gateways. Here is how an online invoice and payment software will benefit your business’ online presence-- Instant payments for purchases
- Facilitates more sales
- Zero boundary sales
- You’ll reach more audience
- Extra convenience for recurring payments
- More sales at low cash with credit cards
- You can influence more impulse buyers
- Extra sales with last-minute deals
- Remote Working will still hold the key-
The pandemic has explained all of us that we can work remotely. And by now made us all a pro at it. While businesses are coming back on track, some organizations might still work remotely. For this, coordination will hold the key for your business activities to be successful. You can easily manage coordination for your business by opting for some easy, yet remarkable practices-- Coordinate, coordinate, coordinate… precisely coordinate with each team for efficient working
- Smartly automate business processes to avoid the hassle.
- Manage your business with online business management tools.
- Increase process transparency for a seamless workflow.
- Manage receivables and payables more precisely to save extra cash
- Do not indulge in any unwanted business expenses for now.
- Attract your TG from their most found platforms (Social Media):
While stranded at home your target audience is spending most of its time scrolling through their feeds to pass their time. This is the time when you can have full attention from them, as the activities on their feeds have become the most influential and is provoking the majority of their decision in the time being. Therefore, instead of spending your marketing budget anywhere else, invest in an active social media campaign to widen your presence and increase your brand visibility to derive more leads. Here is what you should do-- Focus on right kind of messaging- derive messaging from the tiniest of insights of your consumers’ behavior.
- Opt for constant communication- do not leave them, keep them engaged with constant messaging, branding and communications.
- Make your marketing strategies more relevant with the current environment
- Take part in everyday business communications to witness changing trends
- Remember, Pricing will be the key factor in the competition:
Pandemic, lockdown, and isolation have suddenly stopped movements at all grounds. It has even led to economies slowing down and purchasing powers getting weakened. Populations across the globe are cutting extra costs and consciously spending on only the most needful items right now like groceries. Well if you’re into the utility industry you can be spared, but for businesses that deal in most luxuries of life are having a tough time, irrespective of regions. This shall continue for some months to come even in the upcoming year. In a recovery reaction, today most product prices have been sloshed with major discounts of 50-70% that was never seen before. You will have to remember how pricing will play a factor for your business-- It will determine it’s demand
- It will set the pace for the competition
- It will help you build brand image online
- It can accelerate acceptability
- Pricing stand alone is the tool for promotion
- It will define its share in the pool of products available already
- Awareness and response shall lead you to the best:
Many major corporates have got stumped due to the hard times. But, a lot of small businesses are still sailing through it strongly. They are setting examples you should see and you should consider. These are the businesses like you who are still on their paths to grow but still on the right grounds with the audiences to empathize. For any business, big or small, empathy is an important key to grab clients and keep them intact for recurring sales. While major giants have collapsed with unreasonable errors, expenditures, and weak disaster management skills. A small business has found new paths to sail through it. Already set comparatively low pricing, is available in the hard times, setting up measures to help, and becoming more reachable with, now, an online presence has enabled target audience to reach them with the latest technology for years old trust. - Say no to unwanted expenses:
Be smart like your customer. Do not unnecessarily spend on things that can wait. If you were about to launch a new product/service look around and see if this the right time to do it or the launch can wait. Or you were planning to expand into a new office, simply wait. Your teams will be working remotely for quite a while. Or your renovations, if not severely urgent, can wait too. Small activities that were in pipeline and require lots of your investment can be postponed for a while and till then you can work on adding more urgent needfuls to your business like moving online or automation. Spend your money wisely to grow the graph of your business. For now, it is the only best thing you can do to help your business sustain and sail through the tough times.
Final words:
The unlock has begun. Economies have started coming back on track. People are out but consciously. Remember, human consumption patterns are changing. Not just the millennials, but the baby-boomers too are trying to adapt to the changing patterns. Their expectations, perceptions, and behaviors have changed and are updating throughout the crisis. Many businesses have grabbed the opportunities already and moving midway on to the paths of raising their sales graph with the new, trending, yet challenging, opportunities. It is your time now to customize your business processes to work as per the new normal norms of the societies.
In the above blog piece, I tried to solve queries and collate a consciously practical guide for business owners around the globe who are worried about how to resume activities post quarter-long lockdown in their areas which are still unconsciously present.
This is a long race. Many business opportunities will unfold with the changing consumption patterns that you will not even realize were even needed. Just like the major anecdote online payments. Forget online transactions, cashless payments were never a sighted approach. But then, it came into existence. Made its place into the economies slowly and steadily. And today it is benefiting mankind like no other. There are multiple payment gateways, digital payment modes, and cashless transaction sources available that you can easily sit at home and carry forward your transactions. The world is a beautiful place with opportunities lying at every corner. You just need the sight and attention to observe and bring it into the light.
If you have any queries on any factors of this blog, please feel free to connect. I would discuss more about the benefits of workflow automation, the importance of various online and offline factors in your business, and more in my upcoming blogs. Follow this space for more.
We are trying to create a more co-working space for businesses, as these are crucial times for mankind and economies. It is our responsibility as one big society to help each other stand and come back strong after getting hit hard from the global pandemic of COVID 19. In these testing times, we can only survive and grow amidst issues if the human race stands united. Let us all fight it back together and help businesses grow back to strengthen the economies.
About The Author-
I am Veronika Tandon , senior content writer for Invoicera. It is the world’s leading online invoice software with a user base of more than 3 million. Invoicera has always been chosen by businesses all over the world because of its distinct features and value-added services.
