We’re seeing huge growth amongst online businesses – and Covid-19 has accelerated the process. It’s not just Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Google and other big Tech players… the world’s most famous retail brands are also seeing double-digit increases in online sales. If you want to Thrive in a digital future, you need to join them.
Take Nike, for example. The company recently reported full year earnings for fiscal 2020, showing an incredible 79% increase in online sales compared to fiscal 2019. All in all, these online sales made up 30% of Nike’s total revenue – enough to shield the brand from disaster, as Covid-19 forced 90% of its physical locations to close. Nike isn’t lucky – it’s focused on the future. The company has been looking to migrate more and more of its business onto ecommerce channels for years.
The big business winners during lockdown were internet retailers – and their incredible growth over the past two decades demonstrates that this is just the acceleration of a long-term trend. In the second quarter of the year (from the beginning of April to the end of June, when the pandemic was at its worst) Amazon thrived. Second quarter results show that the company saw an enormous revenue increase of 40% against the same period in 2019. More and more shoppers have been pushed online this year… will they go back to brick-and-mortar? Almost certainly not.
Ecommerce-ready businesses are at a huge advantage against their brick-and-mortar-only competitors. They can sell to anyone, anywhere, provided they have a smartphone. And they can do it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – without having to pay someone a wage to man the store. Online doesn’t just stop at retail, either. Email, social media, and online advertising, offer ecommerce businesses powerful communications channels that give them an additional edge.
How big an edge does going online provide? Consider the fact that small businesses which already had Shopify stores managed to recoup 94% of lost in-person sales through online orders. That’s an incredible statistic that is clearly at odds with the wider world: in the US alone, tech researchers expect 4 million small businesses to close this year.
If you haven’t taken your business online yet, then this is your wakeup call: the time is now. It doesn’t matter whether you are tech-savvy or tech-phobic, and it doesn’t matter what products or services you sell: you can have an online presence that works for your business and positions it for the digital future. We have everything you need to get online and Thrive – just call us on 01675 446101
