The past few months have seen tough times for businesses across Australia amid the impact of COVID-19 regulations and lockdowns. With 73 percent of businesses in need of access to support services, ABS reported that 20 percent of businesses earned their income essentially overnight and unemployment was at its highest level in 22 years. The difficulties Australian entrepreneurs and executives are currently facing are unprecedented.
Von Haines Consulting Group founder and CEO Stuart Haines.
Even so, there are several international and Australian companies that are thriving in the face of tightened regulations and lockdowns. One look at the stock market shows you that companies like Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay are finding that their stocks have hit all-time highs over the past month.
There is a single thread that can be found in almost all companies that are currently thriving despite Covid-19 – Online sales.
E-commerce in 2020
E-commerce in 2020 Put simply, if you're a manufacturer or retailer who doesn't sell your products through an online ecommerce website, you're leaving money on the table at a time when your business needs it most. Even before a pandemic scared consumers away from large malls and retail stores, online shopping represented 16 percent of all retail sales worldwide.
However, since Covid-19, that number has risen to 27 percent. This graph shows the extent of this change in consumer behavior.
How can your company take advantage of this trend and grow your sales to levels higher than before the lockdown? Entrepreneurs and management need to digitize the entire sales process.
Digitize your entire sales process
It is not enough to simply create a website that will display your products. In order to convert online viewers into real customers, the entire sales process must be digitized and automated. This means that a customer can browse your store, compare products, buy the products they want and have them delivered to their doorstep with just a few clicks.
Furthermore, you wouldn't just set up your brick and mortar store and expect customers to flood in. A multidisciplinary marketing approach is required to achieve maximum online efficiency and attract paying customers at the lowest possible cost.
Source: Forbes
A multidisciplinary approach to marketing is achieved through consistency and congruence across all marketing channels and communications, including but not limited to branding, social media, email, public relations, and print media. All of these channels and methods need to be digitally connected and work together to achieve the common goal of increasing online sales.
For a manufacturing or retail company, this would mean using social media to build a consistent and positive brand image, email campaigns and paid advertising to attract viewers to your e-commerce website, as well as discounts and offers the website itself to increase sales.
Case study
An example of a company that implemented their digital strategy through this process during the Covid-19 regulations is El Cielo. When restaurants, cafes and bars had to close in March, 68 percent of El Cielo's business was shut down overnight.
Since then, El Cielo has developed and launched its new ecommerce website for retail and wholesale customers, sending consistent messages on their social media platforms, using paid advertising to get their website noticed, and their brand across multiple online -Media publishes PR and conducts email campaigns that have increased online sales by more than 700 percent.
The sales and distribution process has been automated, which has kept costs low by removing old manual processes. As a result, El Cielo is in a better position not only to survive the financial impact of Covid-19 but also to get out of the pandemic stronger than ever.
El Cielo worked around the clock to fulfill orders.
About Stuart Haines
Stuart Haines is the founder and CEO of Haines
Stuart Haines
Consulting Group and Haines Media, companies specializing in business growth, marketing and advertising. Stuart's company was developed out of a passion for working with innovative local entrepreneurs and helping them grow their businesses both nationally and internationally.
