How small-scale businesses deal with pandemics
The under review article 'How small retailers can tackle and prepare for lockdown ', is written by Shaun Broughton on august 10, 2021. This article is briefly discussed how pandemics became an opportunity for some businesses and privation for others.Pandemic had a significant financial impact on traditional retailers. The recent Lockdown in Sydney is costing the economy $1 billion per week which is a consequential loss. But in the same scenario, It had led to a surge in e-commerce and hastened digital transformation.E-commerce sales increased in lockdown. Pandemic prompted a boom in e-commerce and online retailing. It has been observed a notable growth in e-commerce in this period. There is also discussed rectification in e-commerce, online tools to help new merchants to set up their website, and marketcompetition. (Broughton.S, 2021)
The adoption of e-business at the microeconomic level of retail, wholesale, and labor market transactions has a huge impact on company performance and customer and worker economic welfare. This article provides a high-level overview of the economics of e-business, with a focus on empirical research. The fundamental idea that e-business and ICT adoption lowers the cost of transferring, storing and processing information is used to organize the examination.This article builds a framework to understand why e-business has flourished and what the economic benefits are by examining both the projected consequences of e-business on the economy provided by economic theory and data on its actual significance. The article finishes with a discussion of some of the new policy concerns that have arisen as a result of the benefits of e-business in the economy, including questions of traditional retailers' hardships, competition. ( Broughton.S,2021)
The article covers the major surge that occurred in e-commerce businesses in a pandemic. Supply and demand are crucial factors that support this increase. There was a sudden increase in demand which pulled supply. In 2020, 9 million local households did online shopping. It displayed a 57 percent on-year boost in e-business. There was seen a noticeable increase of 10 percent across Australia's top 100 e-commerce sites between the first quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020. In the first quarter of 2021, It was observed the rise of 42 percent in e-commerce. Due to lockdown restrictions, online household purchasing increased that increases the demand further. (Broughton.S.2021)
The latest research of Shopify is coded hereby under review article where it is elaborated about how small scale entrepreneurs using e-commerce platform helped a lot to compensate the burden of the economy in the pandemic. E-commerce produced highly innovative, entrepreneurial, and independently minded businessmen. The enterprising section rises 31 percent that depicts the boom in online businesses. (Broughton.S.2021)
In my opinion, the article depicted the right facts and elaborated detailly about how Australia's e-commerce industry emerged during the pandemic and carry the burden of the economy. But few subjects are missing, for instance, there is not mentioned about major barriers that Australians have to face while doing e-commerce. In a survey report taken by Hinton, it was found that 25 percent of customers prefer other channels. High competition is also considered a major barrier. (Hinton. A. 2021). The Australian government can boost e-commerce by implementing favorable policies. The merchants can raise their portion of sales by using updated technology and providing quality services.
Following the framework set up in the introduction, e-commerce is a modern form of market where small businesses retail and grow their businesses through an online platform. Managing an e-commerce site is budgeting and easy as compared to traditional businesses. A signal individual can run a complete business on solo mode. Small businesses using e-commerce platforms in Australia are growing and booming even amid of pandemic. E-commerce gives the ability to reach more customers than traditional retailers.