Impact of Covid-19 on Industries and Sectors in India.

As India is struggling from the CORONAVIRUS outbreak, and consumers all around the world have been compelled to change their lifestyle because of measures taken by the Honourable Prime Minister like social distancing, work from home, cancelled travel plans, closed schools and the disruption in daily routines

Along with the general public, the ongoing 21-Days Nationwide lockdown is also affecting the e-commerce companies and is pulling down their growth rate to an almost single digit and losing big money.

The most worried some issue currently is that this situation is hitting the sales of these companies and the loss filters down to the sellers on their platforms too.

E-commerce companies are expecting a loss of around a billion-dollar due to supply chain disruption, limited consumer spending and the non-availability of items.

Online retail sale in India, which is dominated by non-essential goods at about 70%, stood at $32 bn in 2019 and was expected to grow by 26% in 2020. But with the spread of COVID-19 and the resultant lockdown to counter the pandemic along with the long-term impact on spending, the growth rate is now expected to slow down in 2020 to around 5%.

We all are well aware that due to this lockdown, non-essential goods including consumer Electronics, Fashion, Appliances, and smartphones are facing supply chain disruption and will continue to face the same from the manufacturers at least for the year. At the same time, consumer spending will take a hit due to the uncertainty in the market.

“The lockdown has been disrupting the operations of e-commerce companies including Amazon and Flipkart, despite government ensuring the supply of essential goods,”. Both the e-commerce giants have also complained of facing challenges with last-mile delivery of goods.

Many e-tailers across segments, including Myntra and Firstcry, are not taking any new orders. Some of the orders have also been cancelled as home deliveries are affected to a large extent because of the lockdown.

About the other segment such as the online groceries and despite the central government’s order to provide essential services during the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, the local retail or Kirana stores have emerged as the bigger saviours, because most e-commerce platforms are not accepting orders and if an order does get accepted, the time to deliver is often 5 to 6 days away.

Amidst these challenges, some other big names have entered the online grocery segment with Meesho, Snapdeal, BharatPe, and ShopClues announcing their plans as demand for grocery delivery witnesses a massive surge.