An Analysis of COVID-19's Impact on E-Commerce Businesses

This report examines the multifaceted impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the e-commerce industry. It begins with an abstract summarizing the positive effects of the pandemic on e-commerce, particularly the increased demand for online shopping due to social distancing measures. The introduction highlights the e-commerce sector's growth and the changes in consumer behavior during the pandemic. A literature review explores the outbreak's effects on various businesses, consumer behavior shifts, positive impacts on e-commerce, and negative impacts on certain e-commerce sectors like travel agencies. The methodology section outlines the research philosophy (positivism), investigation type (quantitative), and data collection methods (questionnaires and secondary data from online sources). The report investigates how e-commerce firms have capitalized on the pandemic, including changes in consumer behavior and the overall impact on the e-commerce sector. The report's structure includes research questions addressing e-commerce opportunities during the pandemic and the use of quantitative methods to analyze collected data and provide insights into the effects of COVID-19 on the e-commerce industry.

CONTENTS
Contents...........................................................................................................................................1
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................2
1.0 INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................3
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................................................4
2.1 Outbreak of Corona Virus that impacted several businesses.................................................4
2.1.1 Changes in consumer behaviour during this pandemic......................................................5
2.1.2 The positive impacts of corona virus on E-Commerce......................................................5
2.1.3 Negative impacts of corona virus have seen over E-Commerce........................................6
3.0 METHODS AND METHODOLOGY......................................................................................6
3.1 Research philosophy..............................................................................................................6
3.2 Questionnaire:........................................................................................................................8
3.3 Hypothesis and research model...........................................................................................10
4.0 CONTRIBUTION...................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................22
1

Impact of Corona virus on e-commerce business
ABSTRACT
The Ecommerce is a medium that reacted positively to spread of Corona virus pandemic
as with the demand for reducing the socialisation or social contact with persons to reduce spread
of virus, Ecommerce platform come up with a big support. This allows people throughout
different location to get their daily essentials at home without being into contact with other
persons or crowd. This study put lights over investigating about the opportunities gained by
Ecommerce due to spread of corona virus. From this study it has been found that corona virus
has more positive impact over Ecommerce by making more and more people enter over online
platform to make purchases to avoid their visit to crowdy places such as supermarket and other
stores.
2

1.0 INTRODUCTION
E-Commerce is a sector which provide online platform to businesses as well as customer
to maintain a direct interaction virtual to transmit product and services from one place to another.
The Ecommerce sector is one of the most demanding platforms by the customers these days due
to its all-time availability and offering of quick services (Hasanat and et. al., 2020). The spread
of Corona virus has left nothing being untouched and unchanged. As other businesses are getting
affected due to corona virus situation, e-commerce is also getting affected as customer behaviour
toward purchasing of product or demand of services also get changed with the changing
condition of society in this pandemic.
The Corona virus pandemic has affected several areas and business are one among them
as this spread of COVID 19 has led country to shut down several of the businesses, stores,
supermarket etc. These in turn brings a huge loss to the country specially the businesses who are
operating using brick and mortar existence only. But on the other side, E commerce sector is one
which is not fully get into disadvantage due to this pandemic (Bhalekar, 2020). As the increase
within the cases of Corona virus people are getting more and more concern about avoiding
socialisation in their regular practices. For this they get fonder of purchasing their daily essential
online to get the item delivered to tehri home without any risk. From this it can be said that the
outbreak of corona virus has bring a huge influence over the Ecommerce sector. To further
investigate about the impact, it brings to the businesses this report is performed which provides a
detailed information about the impact that COVID 19 bring to Ecommerce businesses, whether it
is positively impacted or brings up adverse effect over the businesses.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The current report focuses over investigating about the influences that outbreak of corona
virus brings over the Ecommerce industry. This is so because the spread of this pandemic has
affected several businesses throughout the world by ordering for the lock down of countries,
restricting the travel and tourism and also increases the demand of avoiding socialisation. These
all brings a huge shift within the demand and purchasing behaviour of customers (Koshle, Kaur
and Basista, 2020). But it brings certain positive changes within Ecommerce industry by
encouraging more online shopping habits among customers to get their daily essentials delivered
to their home without taking risk of any socialisation practices. This report discusses about those
changes that Ecommerce has experience due to outbreak of corona virus.
3

RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESIS
RQ 1. How E-commerce firm gets opportunity due to spread of corona virus?
RQ 1.1 How outbreak of Corona Virus impacted several businesses?
RQ 1.2 What are changes in consumer behaviour during this pandemic?
RQ 1.3 What are the positive impacts of corona virus on E-Commerce?
RQ 1.4 What negative impacts of corona virus has seen over E-Commerce?
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
The E-commerce industry is one of the fastest growing sectors among others due to its
additional benefits like anytime anywhere shopping, direct brand customer interaction, home
delivery, 24/7 support services etc. As the pandemic Corona Virus is spreading all over the world
it is affecting economy and business as well (Kim, 2020). But E-commerce remains at an
advantage due to online offering of services which do not require to be restricted toward
performing its operations. Due to increase in cases of COVID 19, the restriction over socialising
and enforcing greater social distancing which supported toward enhancing the sales at E-
commerce platform which doesn’t require socialisation.
2.1 Outbreak of Corona Virus that impacted several businesses
According to the view point of Singh. S., 2020, the corona virus outbreak brings up a huge to
loss of the society as well as economy through out the world. More than 40+ countries get
affected, cities get in to lockdown, travel and transportation get restricted which affected the
financial conditions of different businesses throughout the world. Other than this, global trade,
tourism, commerce, investment and supply chain within disarray. This outbreak influenced the
key macroeconomic indicators such as oil price and interest rates. The oil price gets reduced due
to reduction in demand from country like China which is consider to biggest importer of oil and
also the demand for jet fuel also get reduced due to restriction imposed over travel. This in turn
affected several businesses that are operating in travel and tourism sector. Other countries with
good economic position also seem to be in vulnerable condition such as Germany which stand
fourth among top economically stable countries (Hou, 2020). The corona virus also deteriorates
the automotive sector by showcasing the growth within this situation in year 2020 nearer to zero
by falling the sales of vehicle. Additionally, India stands fifth at economy scale and also consider
as biggest importer of electronic goods from China also get affected with the higher price from
4

China for importing the electronic components due to shortage of supply chain. This affected the
electronic sector of country. These are the major issues that organisations from different part of
world are facing due to this pandemic.
2.1.1 Changes in consumer behaviour during this pandemic
As per the information presented by Bakhtiari. K., 2020, at the initial days of Corona virus
people are getting more anxious and fearful, but as the cases continue to the consumers started
accepting the situation. This pandemic results into lockdown of several countries which in turn
shut down the physical stores to reduce socialising which forced consumers to question about
their shopping habit. The individuals who remain reluctant to shop online, has now created their
account and also having a good experience with their online customer journey. Once they get
habited to perform online purchase, they found harder to set back to physical stores. Due to this
corona virus the world wide e-commerce sale has hit the $ 3.5 trillion in year 2019. On the other
side the tradition brick and mortar retailers are facing issues such as closure, loss of job and
reduction in profit (Lysenko and Мolchanova, 2020). This happens due to change in consumers
5

with the situation created by pandemic. The customer is now getting more attracted toward the
adopting online channels to make their purchases which in turn reducing the growth of physical
stores and at eth same time support in enhancing the reach of E-commerce.
2.1.2 The positive impacts of corona virus on E-Commerce
Singh, H., Majumdar, A., & Malviya, N. (2020), stated that E-commerce is helping a lot in
fighting with the COVID 19 with the help of online retailers who are actually experiencing the
flood of orders from the customers about the essentials which they required due to closure of
physical stores. The COVID 19 has bring a positive impact over ecommerce sector which remain
for long term. This pandemic has given a boost to ecommerce sector due to the online grocery
retailers such as Marks & Spencer, ASDA, Tesco, Sainsbury etc. These are some of the
commonly chosen supermarket which are getting more demand from customers for delivering
grocery items to their home. Other than this the retailers such as in clothing sector also getting
benefited from this pandemic as people are getting more free time to explore the new designs or
trends and hence supported a lot in increasing the sale of the brand that are operating at
ecommerce platform.
2.1.3 Negative impacts of corona virus have seen over E-Commerce
As per the perception of Galanakis, C. M. (2020), the corona virus out break has shaken up
all the smooth running business by creating more fear and anxiety among people to get socialise
with friend, or other public areas. This in turn affected several businesses due to lock down of
several cities and countries the physical stores also get shut down. On the other side the interest
of people toward online platform for purchasing essential items are also getting very much
popular. People are getting attracted toward making purchases online in order to reduce the
socialisation for remaining free from issues (Tashanova and et. al., 2020). But despite of this
some of the ecommerce businesses are also get affected such as traveling agencies, online estate
agents etc. This is so because with the increasing cases of COVID 19 government banned the
travelling as well as moment of people from one city to another. This in turn affected the travel
agencies very badly and take them into more loss. Other than this the ready-made food delivery
organisation that are using ecommerce as a platform to hike up their reach also experiencing a
greater loss as with increasing COVID cases people are getting more aware to not use things that
can harm their health.
6

3.0 METHODS AND METHODOLOGY
Methodologies within investigation are those which help in determine the set of actions
to be taken or procedures to consider for performing the research activities effectively to reach
the desired objectives. The right combination of methodology selected for a research help reader
in determining the validity and reliability of information presented with the medium of
investigation. The methods used for performing investigation are mentioned below:
3.1 Research philosophy
This consists of set of believes that are consider by the investigator for performing the study. The
research philosophy defines about the set of actions to be taken for gathering and analysing the
information for study. The commonly used philosophies are realism, positivism and
interpretivism (Cortez and Johnston, 2020). Among these positivism philosophies will be
consider as it allows the analysis of data that are mentioned in numerical facts and figure which
provide more accurate data.
Investigation type: The investigation outcome depends over the type of method adopted
for executing the study. The investigation methods are qualitative and quantitative method of
data. Among these two the quantitative mean of investigation has been considering by the
researcher for performing this study. This is so because it allows the scholar to present data in
numerical format which ensures better understanding of information by providing accurate data
about a particular phenomenon.
Sources of data collection: This refers to the medium through which data about a study
is collected. The sources of collecting data are divided under two categories such as primary and
secondary. For collecting information about this research both the sources has bene consider by
the investigator. Among these two the primary data will be gathered with the help of
questionnaire where the presentation of data will be made with the help of SPSS that involve
statistical tools to present outcome of data collected. On other side, secondary data will be
gathered through online sources such as journals, articles, blog which includes detail about
corona virus and its impact over ecommerce.
Sampling: - It is defined as number of observations that are included in a research for
gathered data about a particular event or phenomenon. There are mainly two methods through
which sampling size is decided with a study such probability and non probability sampling.
Among these the probability sampling is used which reduce the chances of bias behaviour within
7

the selection of respondents as it chooses people out of population on random bases without any
kind of favour or favouritism. Hence help in getting most reliable and accurate data for the study
to be conduct. As in the context of above sample size is of 100 is chosen for study. This shows
that researcher will gather data from these 100 people by presenting them with prepared set of
questions who are sellers at Ecommerce platform (Ritter and Pedersen, 2020).
Research strategy: This is about the method used for gathering the information to
answer the research question and accomplish the aim behind given study. There are number of
strategies used for gathering and presenting information about an investigation such as
questionnaire, interview, focus group, case study etc. Among these all the questionnaire is used
for gathering information as it most easier medium to collect information ad at the same time
approach more people at a time to present their view about set of questions. The questionnaire
for present study is mentioned below:
3.2 Questionnaire:
1. Which aspect of businesses has been affected due
to outbreak of Corona Virus?
Frequency
(a) Profitability 60
(b) Sales 10
(c) Customers 10
(d) Growth 20
2. Did corona virus affect profitability of business?
(a) Yes 60
(a) No 40
3. At which rate corona virus decreased
profitability rate of different businesses?
(a) Decrease by 5% 20
(b) Decrease by 10% 25
(c) Decrease by 15% 20
(d) Decrease by 20% 35
8

4. At which rate corona virus affected the net loss
of various businesses?
(a) Increased by 5% 25
(b) Increased by 10% 30
(c) Increased by 15% 20
(d) Increased by 20% 25
5. Why net loss of companies raised due to COVID
19?
(a) Due to lower sales 30
(b) Lack of income of people 20
(c) Fear of spread of COVID 40
(d) Lockdown 10
6. Have customers changed their behaviour or not
during this pandemic?
(a) Yes 70
(b) No 30
7. Which aspect of customers’ behaviour affected
mostly?
(a) Price pattern 80
(b) Quality pattern 20
8. Which price range products are focused by
customers?
(a) Price between 50-100 35
(b) Price between 100-150 30
(c) Price between 150-20 25
(d) Price between 200-250 10
9. Why customers’ changed their buying pattern?
(a) Due to higher prices 40
(b) Higher restriction of government 60
9

10. During COVID which type’s products’ sale
raised?
(a) Health care products 70
(b) Food products 30
11. Did corona virus affect the sales margin?
(a) Yes 65
(b) No 35
12. At which rate sales margin of companies rose?
(a) Increase by 2% 25
(b) Increase by 4% 30
(c) Increase by 6% 25
(d) Increase by 8% 20
13. At which rate online searching of products has
raised during COVID?
(a) 10% more 75
(b) 20% more 25
14. Which factor increase the appearance of
customers on online sites?
(a) Lockdown 80
(b) Lack of outworking 20
15. According to you, is corona virus has any
negative impacts over E-Commerce?
(a) Yes 60
(b) No 40
16. At which rate e-commerce companies’ faced
loss?
(a) By 5% 70
(b) By 10% 30
17. Which factor attracted customers to visit e-
commerce sites?
(a) Discounting factor 40
10

(b) Free home delivery 60
18. According to you what are the negative impacts
of corona virus has seen over E-Commerce?
(a) Decrease in profitability 40
(b) Changed customers’ behaviour 20
(c) Lower sales margin 15
(d) Decreased growth 25
3.3 Hypothesis and research model
There are a range of models in order to conduct research and technology acceptance model is one
of them. This is based on assessing relation between different variables.
 Null hypothesis: Corona virus has decreased the profitability rate by at least 10%.
 Alternative hypothesis: Corona virus has not decreased the profitability rate by at least
10%.
 Null hypothesis: Due to corona virus customers focused on products prices at 100-150
pounds.
 Alternative hypothesis: Due to corona virus customers did not focused on products
prices at 100-150 pounds.
 Null hypothesis: Due to corona online sales rose at least from 4%.
 Alternative hypothesis: Due to corona online sales has not risen at least from 4%.
 Null hypothesis: There is a positive relationship between negative impact of corona virus
and profitability of E-Commerce.
 Alternative hypothesis: There is no positive relationship between negative impact of
corona virus and profitability of E-Commerce.
 Null hypothesis- Due to COVID businesses faces net loss at least from 10%.
 Alternative hypothesis- Due to COVID businesses does not face net loss at least from
10%.
 Null hypothesis- There is positive relationship between online searching of products and
factors.
11

 Alternative hypothesis- There is no positive relationship between online searching of
products and factors.
 Null hypothesis-There is negative relationship net loss faced by companies and factors
which attracted customers for online purchasing.
 Alternative hypothesis- There is no negative relationship net loss faced by companies
and factors which attracted customers for online purchasing.
Theoretical framework
E-commerce firm gets opportunity due to spread of corona virus
It is concluded from the above diagram that E commerce services have been increased after the
Covid -19 pandemic. People have started believing online deliveries as nobody was willing to go
out for long. There is huge increase in the sales of fashion, apparels, online subscriptions and
online groceries. These have resulted in enhanced profitability of these business.
12
E commerce service
Online groceries
Subscriptions
Fashion and
apparels