We have already seen how the world has reacted to the Coronavirus pandemic and we also saw that there was a mad rush and panic buying in stores all over the world because there were stay-at-home orders given to people. This is also the reason why we had videos going viral of empty shelves and people fighting with each other to get that last roll of toilet paper that they can get. However, things are different when we take into account the fact that companies are reporting a slump in the sale despite those empty shelves.

If you were also fooled by those videos, here is what Costco has just reported. Well, we do know that the shelves got empty because people started buying everything they could get. However, it is also a fact that the condition remained such for only a few days and then things got back to worse than normal. The stores that would see 100s of customers coming in every day were remaining empty. Costco also says that they were hit hard due to the stay-at-home orders that were imposed by governors in the US.

Costco’s VP said that “Stay-at-home orders, social-distancing restrictions and some mandatory closures led to decreased traffic and sales in our warehouses,” He mentioned that “Limited service in travel and our food courts, closures of most of our optical, hearing-aid and photo departments, and lower volume and price deflation in our gasoline business negatively impacted our April sales by an estimated 12 percentage points, of which approximately 70% is related to gasoline.”

At the same time, Costco did mention that its e-commerce orders were seeing a huge hit since most people were refraining from coming out and ordering online instead to get the items delivered at their doorsteps. The company revealed it saw an “86%” growth in online sales which is “meaningful”.

One thing we have realized during this pandemic and lockdown situation is that we will have new innovations in the market that will be long-lasting and add to the value of things we already have. Take e-commerce for example, while we already had things such as the delivery of items as well as grocery shopping, we did not use it. Now with the pandemic situation, we know that e-commerce is also innovating and things such as scheduled delivery as well as appointments and slots are being given to customers.

Xiaomi, on the other hand, which is one of the biggest players in the smartphone industry has also had to make some changes to how it sells the products online. While e-commerce is one of the big ways in which the company sells its products, it is hard for them to deliver products as e-commerce deliveries have been stopped in many parts of the world. Therefore, Xiaomi has introduced something called Mi Commerce which is their take on a new way of e-commerce.

Basically, the idea here is to reduce the delivery time as well as the distance covered. In short, Xiaomi has said that it will take orders for the items via mediums such as WhatsApp and it will deliver the products to people’s doorsteps from their local Xiaomi shops. As you know, there are Xiaomi authorized stores and resellers in every part of the world such as the Apple Stores. So they will be able to take orders and deliver from the local stores in under an hour depending on the location within their own city.

This will not only reduce the burden on courier companies but we see this continuing even after the lockdown gets over because it is a good way to cut costs for the company as well.

One thing we have realized due to this coronavirus pandemic is that people will have to change a lot of their behaviours once all this gets over which will hopefully happen sooner rather than later. It is known that the shopping patterns have already emerged which means that there are changes in things people are buying now which they were not before the pandemic emerged. It is also said that the people will now invest more on their hygiene products as well as masks and gloves which was not the case at all few months back.

Apart from that, you must have heard a lot about social distancing which is the best defence you can have for the Coronavirus. Basically, social distancing is the practice of being 6 feet or more apart from the person next to you which is a safe distance to be maintained in order to not catch the virus from their presence if they are infected and you are not aware of the same. Due to that reason, shopping malls are also practicing social distancing and making spots in which people need to stand.

As far as online orders are concerned, we know that delivery personnel are also said to follow social distancing. But Best Buy is now testing a new way to practice social distancing while shopping from stores which is ‘appointment shopping’. Basically, you are making an appointment for your shopping and the store will tell you when the appointment has been granted which is the time when you can visit the store for making a purchase.

Currently, this is specifically for Best Buy customers who want to purchase electronics and specific guidance is required for that and “Blue Shirts or Agents” employed by Best Buy are also needed.

We have seen the booming effect of a virus outbreak on e-commerce where people are only ordering online and that has not only triggered the sales to go up, the companies are trying hard to keep the stocks of essential and even non-essential items in all of their stores. Now that we have seen the virus outbreak to settle down a bit compared to the previous weeks where everyone was panic-buying and e-commerce companies were failing to deliver items on time, companies are also looking to keep the momentum going even after the virus.

For this reason, we will see new and innovative methods by companies to attract customers and give them faster deliveries. This latest report comes from Walmart as they have launched a new ‘two-hour’ delivery program during this time of Coronavirus. It is known that even Amazon is failing to deliver products on time to its Prime customers so Walmart will have its task cut out.

But it is also fair to say that if Walmart is promising something, they must have done the research and are confident in what they are trying to offer. Having said that, let’s cut to the point which is that Walmart is offering a new program called “Express Delivery” which aims to deliver all the products such as groceries, electronics and other items in under two hours.

As per Walmart, “Express Delivery will cost $10 in addition to the regular charge for delivery unless you’re a member of the company’s Delivery Unlimited subscription service, in which case you’ll just pay $10 for Express Delivery”.

Walmart CEO states that “We know our customers’ lives have changed during this pandemic, and so has the way they shop,”. “We also know when we come out of this, customers will be busier than ever, and sometimes that will call for needed supplies in a hurry. COVID-19 has prompted us to launch Express Delivery even faster so that we’re here for our customers today and in the future.”