ecommerce solutions

eWAY: Businesses Flock to eCommerce Solutions in Wake of COVID-19

Many Australian bricks-and-mortar businesses have taken flight to eCommerce in order to bolster their sales following restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 virus according to the latest figures revealed by Australian eCommerce payments provider, eWAY.

In the six-week period following the announcement of restrictions on the retail and hospitality sectors, eWAY saw a 369 per cent increase in applications from the hospitality sector, a 380 per cent increase from groceries and supermarkets, and a 233 per cent increase from beer, wine and liquor merchants. 

These increases were compared to the six week period prior to the announcement of restrictions.

eWAY Australia and New Zealand Managing Director Mark Healy said, “A lot of the businesses we see coming online were those that had more of a bricks and mortar presence, but due to the restrictions announced, had to pivot their businesses and look for alternate ways to process orders and take payments. 

“Some of the businesses we’ve been involved with in establishing their online payment functionality include a range of restaurants and cafes, fruit and vegetable retailers and butchers.

“Most of these already had a web presence, but not a true online retail capability.”

Mr Healy said that non-traditional eCommerce businesses such as local butcher shops were turning to web solutions to continue to trade with their customers and offer online ordering and secure payment. 

“Many of these businesses are now offering local delivery services and click-and-collect,” Mr Healy said. 

“We expect that these service options will become permanent in a lot of cases as businesses adapt to the changed landscape.

“The business knows that payment has been approved, so they can pack orders and thereby minimise physical human contact as well.”

Gnocchi Gnocchi Brothers

One restaurant business which has adapted by using an eCommerce solution is Queensland’s Gnocchi Gnocchi Brothers, with dining premises at Paddington, South Bank and Southport. 

Co-founders Ben Cleary-Corradini and Theo Roduner built their business from a two-person market stall in Brisbane serving fresh handmade gnocchi.  

“When the COVID-19 restrictions came in we had to close our dining operations, which constituted about 50 per cent of our revenue,” Ben Cleary-Corradini said.

“We had to look for other ways to continue to operate and keep our staff on. We had spent a lot of effort increasing our current online experience for customers and took the opportunity to launch our own home delivery service utilising eWAY’s all-in-one payment solution.

“As well as clawing back some of the lost revenue and improving margins with the takeaway side of our business, importantly it has meant we’ve been able to redeploy some of our staff and hang on to some of those jobs.”

Cleary-Corradini said that Gnocchi Gnocchi Brothers has benefited significantly by becoming takeaway focused and being able to serve the community and loyal customers that wanted to support them.

Since launching in 1998, eWAY has become the dominant player in the Australian eCommerce space, processing more than 1 in 4 transactions in the market for businesses both large and small.

eWAY seamlessly integrates with hundreds of leading eCommerce shopping cart platforms and a network of custom integration development partners, providing a competitive advantage for any business that wants to grow through accepting digital payments.

eCommerce: Pandemic Panacea?

eCommerce: Pandemic Panacea?

If the GFC, SARS, Swine Flu and Zika were condensed into a single movie, it would be akin to The Terminator – a film dwarfed by it’s successor in every way. The COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, or Judgement Day in this metaphor, is already laying waste to the global economy in a spectacular fashion as we all grapple with our ‘new normal’.

 

 

Long-lasting economic impacts of the pandemic pale in comparison to the immediate, public health disaster that we are faced with as we all battle to flatten the curve and collectively grieve for the fallen. If you feel extremely uncertain about the future, you’re not alone – 39% of people feel the same way, plus another 52% of people feel somewhat uncertain. You’ll also be forgiven if you feel anxious, as nearly half the population share your existential dread, with only a quarter feeling somewhat optimistic according to a report by McCrindle this month (April 2020).

 

 

As most of us stay home for the greater good, we look toward online delivery of essential items like groceries and food. Our thirst for online retail is now more significant and necessary than ever, and we’re now seeing significant spikes in search traffic to terms that reflect grocery store shortages instead.

 


 

As I’ve written about previously, the first to disappear from grocery stores was toilet paper, followed swiftly by hand sanitiser and pasta. A surprising item to sell out nationwide was flour, which I later discovered was predominately being used by housebound Australians to make banana bread. I know one of the first symptoms of Coronavirus is losing your taste; but banana bread, seriously?

 

 

The Pandemic Pyramid

eCommerce analytics firm Profitero have crafted a Maslowian pyramid based on prolific search terms on Amazon. Comprised of 7 need states arranged into 3 groups, this is a great insight into consumer behaviour thus far.

 

 

As you can see, the Survival tier, responsible for consumers emptying supermarket shelves of essentials is predictably responsible for the largest increases in consumer spending.

Marketplace Pulse have been tracking the popularity of items that we’d consider Coronavirus essentials (face masks, wipes, gloves, soap, hand sanitisers, toilet paper and emergency food) since December 2019. Their findings are represented as the Amazon Coronavirus Index:

 

 

Hot on it’s heels is the Embracing Quarantine tier, where those of us lucky enough to work from home begin to splash out on improving the home office, kitchen and investing in puzzles which haven’t seen this kind of demand since the information era began.

 

 

With gyms shut down and fitness equipment now being worth it’s weight in gold (literally, rusty weight sets are now $300+ on Gumtree if you’re lucky) – the urge to improve our health, is nearly 5 times as popular as improving our homes in the top tier.

 

 

Marketers in the fitness sphere have capitalised on this trend, Pattern89 have reported that headlines and body copy featuring sport and fitness topics increasing four times from 5.7% to 21% of all digital ads – talk about those gains.

Aside from fitness bulking up, we’re also seeing a shift in imagery in general being used, with a substantial 27.4% decrease in ad creatives that feature human contact, and a six-fold increase in cleaning/hygiene practices. I know I’m not alone when I feel the urge to shout at the TV screen to tell characters to social distance.

 

Drop Dropshipping

As my colleagues have written about this month (links below) the importance of your tone of voice when it comes to marketing your business in a time of crisis is paramount. You shouldn’t feel afraid to continue to do business, but you should feel compelled to shy away from opportunistic and predatory messaging.

 

READ MORE: Brand Marketing More Important Than Ever

READ MORE: Communicating In The Age Of Coronavirus

 

Now is not the time to prey upon the less fortunate or the digitally naive, particularly with the elderly being one of the largest cohorts being forced to utilise eCommerce and likely lacking the digital cynicism that most of us (hopefully) possess.

Dropshipping stores that rely on wholesale marketplaces like Alibaba/Aliexpress are opportunistic models at the best of times, and Shopify have recorded registrations of over 500 Coronavirus-related digital storefronts since the outbreak.  Not only are they seeking to profit off a global public health crisis and are offering a sub-standard (potentially lethal) product, they will likely be unable to fulfil orders in a timely fashion anyway.

 

 

More worrying still, I’ve noticed an increase in ‘successful entrepreneurs’ marketing their own dropshipping training courses to potentially vulnerable people on social media. These (surprisingly expensive) ‘courses’ offer extravagant promises of outrageous success through creating your own dropshipping eCommerce store by leveraging ‘winning products’ and somehow equating revenue to gross profit. Stranger still, they all seem to pose next to the exact same AMG G-Wagon in the exact same location (a used luxury car dealership).

eCommerce is a fruitful endeavour when you can offer a genuine product, delivered in a timely manner which creates actual value for the customer. Self-isolation is a wonderful time to consider forging yourself a sustainable and scalable digital income, but be wary enough to do it in a way that benefits your customers as much as it benefits you financially.

Keep your wits about you, keep your messaging clean, and spread hope – not Coronavirus.

Australian winemakers open for business in China with Alibaba and Australia Post

Australia Post is helping home-grown businesses capitalise on the lucrative Chinese eCommerce market through its new partnership with the largest online wholesale website in China, 1688.com.

1688.com is a business-to-business (B2B) online marketplace, operating wholly in Chinese. It was established in 2010 by the Alibaba Group, operator of the largest online and mobile marketplaces in the world, to help foreign businesses sell their goods in China at wholesale prices.

Today’s official launch of Australia Post’s 1688.com “Australian pavilion” (auspost.1688.com) will provide a powerful online platform for Australian businesses to sell into China in bulk, reaching more than 100 million registered users and enticing Chinese importers to buy Australian products at more affordable, wholesale prices.

Australia Post will initially help sell wine through 1688.com because of the strong demand for Australian wine exports into China but, given the growing interest in high quality Australian products more generally, this will expand to include other categories in 2016.

Australia Post’s Managing Director and CEO Ahmed Fahour says that as we enter a landmark era in China-Australia free trade, there has never been a better time for Australian businesses to access China’s flourishing eCommerce sector, which is set to become the world’s top import market for online goods by 2018.

“Australia Post is committed to supporting local businesses by breaking down barriers to selling overseas and delivering eCommerce solutions that make it easier to do business across the country and overseas,” Mr Fahour said.

“International expansion can be a daunting prospect for many Australian companies but Alibaba’s B2B platform, 1688.com, offers the perfect solution for small and medium businesses to drive more sales in China.”

“Our world-first partnership with 1688.com is a one-stop eCommerce, logistics and delivery solution that streamlines labelling, packaging, pallet consolidation, sea and air transport, customs clearance, warehousing and distribution.”

“Alongside our new storefront on Alibaba’s 1688.com, we already have an existing storefront on Alibaba’s Tmall Global business-to-consumer (B2C) marketplace (auspost.tmall.hk). This means customers who want to sell their products into China can partner with us to sell directly to consumers in China via Tmall, as well as wholesale to Chinese businesses via 1688.com.”

“When you combine these two marketplaces and Australia Post’s role as AliPay’s exclusive agent in Australia, we now offer a complete eCommerce solution that can be tailored to any local business wanting to get into the Chinese market.”

Michael Mang, Head of International Marketing and Business Development for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, of Alibaba.com and 1688.com says, “Our ongoing partnership with Australia Post is a crucial part of our cross-border trade strategy. We are delighted that our agreement enables Australian exporters a direct sales channel to Chinese retailers with even greater wholesale opportunities.”

Flame TreeAustralia Post is today launching the online store in collaboration with the Margaret River Wine Association – the first wine region to sell via the Australian pavilion, showcasing wines from five premium wineries in Western Australia – EVOI Wines, Flametree Wines, Happs Wines, Laurance Wines and Rosily Vineyard.

Nick Power, CEO of Margaret River Wine Association said, “Our producers told us they needed a faster speed-to-market solution for Chinese exports, and Australia Post listened. The 1688.com Australian pavilion is the culmination of many years of work to solve a major obstacle for the Australian wine industry, offering a simple avenue to sell and ship to China in bulk.”

“We’re thrilled to be the first Australian wine region to showcase our premium wines on 1688.com. Ten different bottle varieties across the Margaret River region’s five participating wineries are now on sale to millions of Chinese people through this online store,” said Nick.

“Putting local competition aside, we hope our partnership with Australia Post and 1688.com will pave the way for other Australian wine regions to get on-board and take advantage of this huge opportunity to enter one of the world’s largest consumer markets.”

Over the coming months, Australia Post will work directly with other premium wine regions to broaden the range offered on the site.

Australian businesses looking for help to grow their business in China, can contact 1688@auspost.com.au

To visit the 1688.com Australian shopfront (in Chinese) go to auspost.1688.com.

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