„Online services are here to stay“

My house, my refuge. Home has become the center of our lives for a few months and likely will remain of fundamental importance for a long time. Our home is our refuge, where we feel safe, a habitat in all its physical and emotional dimensions. All the elements related to well-being in this environment are upward trends. The first is the change in the valuation of the houses with a terrace or balcony, an element that had lost valuation in recent years and that has suddenly recovered it. But also, the furniture, the decoration, the gardening, and the overall do-it-yourself home improvement. For those who have extra time and money, it is not uncommon to think of finishing old projects or starting new ones, such as a pool or playground.
Bring it to my house. If social distance is the key factor in our strategy against the virus, e-commerce in general becomes a safer alternative. Many households have discovered the appeal of online shopping, others have expanded it to products that they did not usually consider. Most houses have established a cleaning protocol for when shipments arrive, which for weeks have become the only point of union with the outside world. From toys to office supplies and home gym equipment, these products experienced a great boom during that has stabilized towards more recurring purchases like gourmet products, books, musical instruments, puzzles, and wine.
On the same line of a shifting consumer behavior, for instance some of the most popular products at DK Hardware today are related with protecting employees and separating consumers with employees, like speak-thru devices, trays and shelves and sliding service windows, which will be needed for places like aquariums, zoos, museums, libraries, within others.
Let's build a relationship. People tend to remember who was on their side in difficult times. An emotional bond is established that is maintained over time. In this case customers will remember who was and who was not. The great absentees of this big challenge have been some supermarket chains. Not all of them sell online and those who do, sometimes have delivery times of over 5 days.
With this, I do not want to detract from the enormous effort they have made to maintain the supply chain and the continuity of stock in physical stores, but it makes no sense that if the recommendations were to stay home throughout months, they wouldn't fully adapt in time to provide an exceptional online experience nor made any investments in infrastructure to make customers and employees safer, especially in places where restrictions are being lifted.
But neither have many small shops, stores and all kinds of producers who continued to use only fixed distribution channels. Or the neighborhood stores that have not been able to transition their business online. Others, on the other hand, without means and artisanal fashion, have understood how to stay close to customers in the most difficult moments.
Those who have remained engaged are sometimes smaller e-commerce companies who were struggling to position themselves and gain market share, familiar with e-commerce processes, with adapted logistics and which were only waiting for their opportunity. Now that they have had it, customers are craving unthinkable shipments of hams, cheeses, wines, seafood, meat, or any type of prepared food.
Let's meet online. Lawyers, psychologists, coaches, language and music teachers, Pilates, yoga, or physical therapy. Each discipline, although with its own specific difficulties, has experienced a sudden transition to the online arena. Of course, the return to the new normality will once again experience a resurgence of face-to-face services, but we will not return to the previous state. Online services are here to stay. They have some weaknesses such as the lack of a more personalized treatment and the possibility of physical engagement, but also has remarkably interesting aspects. The decrease in travel time to experience the service and greater security regarding health lead the list.
How will the future look like? It is not easy to make predictions in such a volatile environment and during an economic crisis that will also affect consumption patterns. The aforementioned trends will be consolidated and maintained at least throughout 2020. And those customers who have adapted to this new behavior will probably never go back to normality.
E-commerce has registered an increased growth during the past five months, with all categories of customers trying to experience new products and services and actually sticking to them if their needs are met, which elevates the probability of a retuning online customer. But some of online retail's technologies and shipping processes must improve for it to fully dethrone physical shopping. The global pandemic has dramatically reduced that gap, and it will be remarkably interesting to analyze consumer behavior once COVID-19 is eradicated from the major economies.
Featured in the Best Online Shops 2020 - Newsweek, DK Hardware is one of the largest online home improvement retailers for a variety of hardware manufacturers all over the United States and Canada.