While every con­ceiv­able area of busi­ness has seen sig­nif­i­cant changes and shifts over the past year because of COVID-19, one of the most rapid­ly chang­ing fields is that of e‑commerce. This shouldn’t come as a sur­prise, with e‑commerce see­ing an absolute explo­sion in the decade pre­ced­ing COVID-19 as the con­ve­nience of online shop­ping grew, and large brick-and-mor­tar enter­pris­es strug­gled to com­pete. Still, COVID-19 rep­re­sent­ed a whole new era of growth. For many cus­tomers, hav­ing goods mailed direct­ly to their homes was not only the eas­i­est way to buy things dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, but it was also the safest. 

Last week, Dig­i­tal Com­merce 360 host­ed a vir­tu­al con­fer­ence—Lead­ing the 2021 E‑commerce Charge. Fea­tur­ing research and thought lead­ers work­ing in this space, the event gave atten­dees a glimpse at how COVID-19 has changed the world of e‑commerce and how com­pa­nies went about respond­ing to this black swan event. Here are some high­lights from the event. 

The Lay of the E‑Commerce Land 

The event kicked off with a trend report from Faree­ha Ali, research and edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor at Dig­i­tal Com­merce 360. She dis­cussed some of the growth the Dig­i­tal Com­merce 360 research team is report­ing in the e‑commerce space. Right off the bat, 2020 rep­re­sent­ed a huge amount of growth for e‑commerce, with 32% more use than years past. 

“In oth­er words, it was a big year in e‑commerce,” Ali said. A few areas of web e‑commerce growth high­light­ed includ­ed a 100% increase in food and bev­er­age orders, along with increas­es in the toys and hob­bies and con­sumer elec­tron­ics spaces. 

The growth seen in 2020 didn’t slow down this year. Ali dis­cussed some data from the U.S. Depart­ment of Com­merce, which showed that online sales were up 39% in the first quar­ter of 2021, com­pared to a 14% increase last year — this rep­re­sents the high­est first quar­ter growth rate since 2001. Cer­tain parts of e‑commerce are see­ing a lot of growth, includ­ing curb­side pick-up. This year, 52% of top 500 retail chains are now offer­ing omnichan­nel ser­vices, up from 8% in 2020. 

How COVID-19 Affect­ed Fulfillment 

Anoth­er ses­sion lead by James Melton, research ana­lyst at Dig­i­tal Com­merce 360, fea­tured a round­table with Lev Peker, CEO and direc­tor of CarParts​.com; Bob Goodliffe, CEO of Cyber​weld​.com; and Adam Green­berg, pres­i­dent and founder of NorthShore​.com, dis­cussing how ful­fill­ment rad­i­cal­ly shift­ed dur­ing COVID-19 and how each orga­ni­za­tion responded. 

Green­berg spoke about the vol­ume fluc­tu­a­tions his and oth­er com­pa­nies have seen over the past year. NorthShore​.com sells med­ical sup­plies and imme­di­ate­ly began see­ing sales increas­es in Feb­ru­ary 2020, cul­mi­nat­ing in the pan­ic buy­ing surge the U.S. saw in March and April, with ups and downs cor­re­lat­ing with the news of the day. Ulti­mate­ly, sup­plies deplet­ed, with NorthShore​.com hav­ing to turn off the adver­tis­ing on cer­tain products. 

Mar­tin asked the group about the ful­fill­ment changes that helped each orga­ni­za­tion get through the pan­dem­ic. Green­berg men­tioned how the organization’s move to a new dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter, with automa­tion capa­bil­i­ties, in March 2020 even­tu­al­ly helped alle­vi­ate some of the com­plex­i­ties asso­ci­at­ed with COVID-19. He also dis­cussed how NorthShore​.com tried to incen­tivize cus­tomers to order ear­li­er — reduc­ing wait times — and in larg­er amounts — to reduce the num­ber of pack­ages in the ful­fill­ment system. 

Sim­i­lar­ly, Peker dis­cussed the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the customer. 

“[The] num­ber one things we’ve done is let the cus­tomer know up front when parts are com­ing … and telling them about delays in the sys­tem,” he said, while touch­ing on his organization’s prac­tice of pro­vid­ing email and text updates on the loca­tion of an order in the ful­fill­ment system. 

Sim­i­lar­ly, Goodliffe also cov­ered the impor­tance of inform­ing cus­tomers where their order is, not­ing that some­times esti­ma­tions of deliv­er­ies — espe­cial­ly in the cur­rent sup­ply chain ecosys­tem — can some­times change. He empha­sized the impor­tance of find­ing out lead-time delays and com­mu­ni­cat­ing effec­tive­ly with customers. 

ASUG will be tack­ling a few of these top­ics and more at ASUG­FOR­WARD. Join us on June 21‒24 for ses­sions with SAP cus­tomers and experts. ASUG mem­bers also reg­is­ter for our exec­u­tive pro­gram­ming on June 15‒17, fea­tur­ing SAP lead­ers. Reg­is­ter now for these vir­tu­al expe­ri­ences.