Work From Home
How Brands Reacted To WFH Trends
Post date: 2020-06-26 00:44:54 Index
In response to Coronavirus how consumer purchase behavior has changed?
How e-commerce is booming?
4 ways brands react to WFH trends:
Help your employees create a home office
Engage followers with fun, viral challenges
Embrace technology
Monitor your competition and be proactive
Conclusion
Everyone has started working from home. Huge companies and market leaders started allowing WFH for all or most of their employees, some forever. The consumption of goods has changed dramatically, especially office supplies. This COVID 19 pandemic along with countrywide lockdown has permanently changed how we live and work, how and from where we shop, and most importantly what we value.
Amid this lockdown period, people rarely come out of their homes to go shopping. So the buzzing question is how our shopping behaviors changed in the near and distant future. What is the effect of booming E-commerce on the global retail industry? And how the main shopping streets of the city look like in the next few months?
In response to Coronavirus how consumer purchase behavior has changed?
According to the survey of the National Retail Federation (NRF), some of the changed key consumer manners are;
- 9 out of 10 consumers have modified their conventional shopping habits.
- About 50% of consumers, those are normally purchasing things from stores, are now preferring to order products online.
- Due to fear of infection 6 out of 10 consumers are showing concern going to the store and supermarket.
Some of this change in consumer behavior is temporary but others are going to be permanent.
Consumers are holding tight to most of the common behaviors; as the virus is reshaping the retail industry in real-time. This article is about how brands are reacting with work from home trends to endure the new consumer behaviors post-crisis.
How e-commerce is booming?
Under nation wise lockdown, the government has already lifted the restrictions on e-commerce and allow online stores to sell everything along with essential commodities. After the announcement, there was a huge spike in e-commerce. It is not a scenario of one country, e-commerce it reshaping dramatically, as most states and countries are now adopting the “stay home, stay safe” attitude.
To secure the future of the business, entrepreneurs have to be creative and serve the customers, by keeping the supply chains intact. Amid this crisis, people have completely changed their buying priorities. Consumer priorities have now focused on the most basic needs that expand the demand for essentials like personal care, hygiene, and cleaning. A U.S. based e-commerce study compares the sales in March 2020 vs. 2019. All kinds of outdoor products, clothing, and electronics goods dropped significantly well. Whereas, all kinds of foods and hygiene products becomes the top seller.
So, now where the e-commerce is again taking the gear up, brands are adopting new measures to keep running smoothly each sector of it; from marketing, sales, e-commerce, to customer service.
4 ways brands react to WFH trends:
Help your employees create a home office
As most of the companies are adopting work from home culture to keep their employers safe and sound, bands and e-commerce stores are observing a drastic change in the product’s rank, price, and review.
As a social giant, Twitter first announced their staff can work from home "forever" if they are comfortable doing work efficiently from home. After that Google and Facebook also announced that their staff can work from home till the end of this year. This announcement is just like "an era-defining moment" by most of the digital innovation experts.
This new culture is reshaping product demand. By comparing weekly data over time one can easily find how the office supply category shifted towards home office supplies. This abrupt change in the office supply category is due to the temporary shutdown of large corporate offices.
For example, there is a huge downfall in the sale of printer inks and office papers. As obviously people are printing less, that’s why the demand for printers, inks, and papers is subsequently less. Whereas envelopes, legal pads sales gains a position is top100 best sellers in office supplies for the first time. That means people are using a new productivity tool to create the new office.
Engage followers with fun, viral challenges
This is a challenging time for brands!
Customers are less loyal to their brands because of the availability issue which happened at the beginning of the COVID crisis. All together the changed behavior lowers the overall brand loyalty and the “shop local” trend accelerates. The preference of buy local reflects in both the way they shop and on the products they buy (e.g. small scale and locally sourced).
This automatically hit the brands. According to a leading skincare brand in India they were about to receive 19,000+ online orders per day before the country-wise lockdown, whereas now they have seen only 2500 orders per day.
So, brands are taking more risks than they used to take before the pandemic. To deal with these loyalty issues, brands are becoming more creative in how they engage with audiences,. In the entire April month, social media, like Instagram faced several viral challenges.
There are online competitions, where brands are asking their followers to dress up and post a picture of them with their brand collection. A few of the competition invites people to sketch their dream outfit. Some of the brands are giving themes online and asked to draw and post something related to the theme.
Even if most of the brands are highly effected they are trying to optimistic and keep connecting with their inner team, followers, and loyal customers.
Embrace technology
In the past few decades, the most important behavioral change in retailing commerce was the transition to digital shopping. Whereas the COVID-19 pandemic just accelerates the shift to digital commerce more rapidly. As most of the retail shops are closed, and to maintain social distancing, consumers are being asked to go for e-commerce orders for food, groceries and other essentials.in the last two months, many families had given a shot to the online shopping for the first time. And most likely, this rise in digital commerce is going to sustain post-outbreak.
Brands are using video conference calls, e-meeting instead to fly around the country to take a part of the face to face meeting. In house meeting setup, outfit designing, product launch; for every important decision, brands are using smart technologies. Before the pandemic, everyone wonders with the term “digital transformation”. No one has a clear understanding of what this term means. This crisis has defined it in a very short period and that too in a better way than anyone ever could have.
This rise in e-commerce tendency makes us believe that retail is now at an inflection point. And depending on how the retail industry operates and how customers shop, this is going to emerge of “A New World Order” in retail.
Monitor your competition and be proactive
This crisis cannot change the way, how leading brands and companies keep themselves in a better place from their competitors, which based on the experience that the brands deliver to their customers.
This work from home trend comes with a few positive sides too. While as a brand you can connect with tour followers, you also can have your eye on your competitor. You can read online reviews about any trending product to get an idea of how your competitors are ahead of you. To increase their reach and engagement, brands are also using the social media platform for innovative social marketing campaigns.
Conclusion:
The need to adapt to market and world changes is crucial, those who will embrace change will emerge as the new leaders. Those who don’t will become irrelevant and go out of business. So, though it’s a tough time for the brand. But they are also taking several measures to keep their business afloat.
