Survey: Online retailers take steps to combat COVID-19 impact

COVID-19 is having a negative effect on most e-commerce retailers.

According to a global survey of more than 800 online retailers of digital and physical goods and services from monetization platform 2Checkout, only 12% of respondents expect to benefit from the current COVID-19 situation.

On the other side of the spectrum, 28% of respondents are expecting the worst. About one-third (32%) of respondents expect the pandemic to have a significant negative impact on their business, they hope to mitigate it with a well-executed crisis response plan. Another 21% foresee a minimal impact on overall revenues, with only 8% saying they don’t expect COVID-19 to have any impact on their business.

The number one pandemic-related challenge faced by respondents is slow sales, with 60% preparing for a sluggish sales cycle. More specifically, 18% report difficulty with finding or closing new business, and 17% are struggling with restricted or stagnant funnels. 

Many respondents are also looking to their product and marketing teams to adapt to the new market conditions and changing consumer preferences. Thirty-eight percent and 39% of respondents are planning, respectively, to launch new products and run promotions to overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 landscape. In addition, 28% of respondents are prioritizing tactics such as upsells and upgrades, aimed at increasing customer lifetime value. 

Other tactics some respondents are leveraging to overcome COVID-19 challenges include aggressively entering foreign or unfamiliar markets in search of new business (22%), using testing and conversion rate optimization (CRO) tactics and strategies to improve their onsite order flow and increase conversions (17%), improving positioning, packaging, and pricing to adapt to the changing times (13%).