Accelerating E-Commerce Post COVID-19

With the number of COVID-19 cases decreasing, businesses are eager to get back to work. However, the post-COVID-19 period brings with it its own set of challenges. Customers remain wary of the dangers posed by COVID-19, and consumer spending is still heavily skewed towards e-commerce and online retail. The ’new normal’ is here to stay, and businesses will have to adapt in order to ensure a speedy recovery.

Recently a short webinar was conducted by SME Magazine to discuss the implications of starting an e-commerce business, as well as the best practices and strategies involved in the industry Panellists that attended the webinar included Sam Kon, Chief Operating Officer, Asia, at Beyond Infinity Consultancy, Vivy Yusof, Group Creative Director, at FashionValet.com, and Fadzarudin Shah Anuar, Chief Executive Officer, at FashionValet.com.

This is a rather unique line of panellists as all three panellists are quite young, and represent the next generation of entrepreneurs who are flexible and are willing to adopt change in order to thrive.

In the case of Beyond Infinity, Mr Sam explains how he managed to transition his traditional family business into an e-commerce one. He also emphasises the importance of branding when it comes to operating online.  With the ever expanding popularity of social media and the internet, consumers are becoming more vocal about the services and products they receive.

Kon reminds us that a good or bad customer experience can be posted to social media almost immediately, thus impacting a brand. As such, he strongly advises businesses to constantly provide the best possible service to ensure customer satisfaction at all times. This is even more important now as COVID-19 has pushed many more customers towards.

With regards to FashionValet.com story, Ms Vivy and Mr Fadzarudin established their company in 2010 as an online retailer that espoused the local fashion brands. Through clever marketing and use of social media, they were able to gather a large following of customers, all the while helping grant local fashion brands exposure.

Ms Vivy and Mr Fadzarudin put great stock into listening to customer feedback. As such, they advise businesses to immediately address any negative feedback as soon as possible, as well as capitalise on the positive feedback they receive.

For example, due to popular demand, FashionValet.com went against mould by opening up a pop-up store even though their e-commerce business was already successful. Said store was a massive success, especially since many of their products featured local and less well-known brands, making their store unique among the sea of other more prominent brands. This in turn brought even more traffic to their online business.

With ‘the new normal’ completely changing the expectations of consumers, both branding and listening to customer feedback are vital to continued success. This is especially so for SMEs who can no longer afford to adhere to the same ‘pre-COVID’ rules. Fortunately, SMEs have the agility and flexibility that larger corporations lack in order to adapt and implement change.

You can view the entire webinar via the SME Magazine Facebook page, which can be found here.