COVID-19 has impacted Retail business in the worst way possible, Before the start of 2020, the word Corona was only found on the billboards in the South and Central American region as it is a famous liquor brand, this name gets its immortal association with a life-threatening disease just after the first case reported in Wuhan, China.
It never stopped for a minute, and the people have been the living carrier of such a disease. At this time, there are nearly 8.24 million people affected by this Pandemic COVID-19. This pandemic has affected all types of business sectors.
The hospitality industry has seen the worst drop in its revenue collections in the European region. Private companies in the Middle East have released nearly 5 million employees. Such calamity is the same for businesses around the world.
The Impact Of COVID-19:
The biggest challenge for the retail sector was to keep up with their sales. It is quite evident when there are no customers to purchase the items, the sales graph will go down, which ultimately results in cost-cutting. Not only the sales but the infrastructure is also getting massively affected.
Some of the challenges which the retail industries are facing these days are:
Immediate Exposure:
One of the potential threats that the retail industry has faced amidst this pandemic was the exposure because most of the retailers operating locally are depending a lot on Chinese products.
Not only the locals but all the international products that were banking on Chinese products like Louis Vuitton, Versace, and other fashion brands suffered a loss of several million in the very first month when the Chinese government announced a locked-down situation in Wuhan.
Moreover, the other affected East Asian countries have also suffered in terms of regulation of work concerning the conditions, the health and safety of their laborers and coworkers were also at high risk due to the pandemic situation.
One of the reasons why retailers have suffered a lot along with such exposition is because China serves as the World’s factory, no matter what you want you can have it from there like electronics gadgets, machinery tools, fabrics, garments.
China is the hub for all the retail items, and one can imagine what would have happened to the local retailers in China after listening to the news of the immediate closure of markets. Due to this outbreak, the neighboring countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Japan, the USA, Italy & France being distant importers, have suffered a lot because these countries are the top retail item importers from China.
Demand & Supply Shortage:
Retail Businesses around the world are facing the problem of shortage in supply concerning people’s demand. Although online shopping and delivery are somewhat sufficing the retailers but here comes the question, what to do when the online supplies go up several times as compared to the usual?
Here the smart business strategy comes into play, as the more prominent brands who had this intuition, filled their stocks with all the necessary items which caused a significant drop in supplies for the smaller retailers to buy and sell the product in the open market.
This shortage of supplies created chaos as most of the people do not have access to the privileged items and the products that can be purchased locally are way more expensive than they usually are, this demand and supply problem is enormous in the developing countries where people living below the belt are forced to live for a single meal per day.
The rise in the Demand Of Organic Products:
Big thanks to social media campaigns especially, to messenger groups for propagating messages about organic materials useful for the eradication of symptoms linked to COVID-19. Although there is a slight possibility that it may work, it has given rise to the demand for organic products primarily in the South Asian region.
That caused a cleaning of such materials from the market. This was uncalled for because organic/ herbal products are an essential source of treatment for the patients of Alzheimer’s and epilepsy. Their unavailability or shortage has caused a severe threat to the lives of many severe elderly aged patients.
The retail industry, on the other hand, suffered a bit as well to make it worse. The distribution in the market for these products is abrupt as they are being sold without any proper licensing and precautionary orders to random people. Such anonymous selling has also made this situation fatal.
Conclusion:
Covid-19 had an impeccable impact on the retail market, the bigger fishes are winning the battle, and those retailers operating locally are finding it hard to adjust in the market. The pandemic that started in late February from Wuhan has taken over the world.
SOPs are being followed all around the world with this hope that this pandemic may vanish one day, and the losses retail markets have suffered due to this may get filled up soon.