E-commerce in quarantine: household appliances and supermarkets stung

The sale of technology, electronics and household appliances is what grew the most in electronic commerce at the start of the quarantine. Second, essential products were located.

The data was provided today by the Argentine Chamber of Electronic Commerce (Cace) as part of a survey that was carried out together with the consulting firm Kantar among 86 leading e-commerce companies throughout the country in the first days of May.

For that, he compared the sales data for April with the average for the first quarter of the year. The study did not reveal the tourist activity, according to studies by the entity of 2019 the most important heading of Internet commerce in the country with a participation of 25 percent of total sales, since its participation was null so far Mandatory isolation to stop the Covid-19 virus.

Overall, e-commerce grew 38 percent in purchase orders, 71 percent in units, and 84 percent in billing.

“The encouraging fact was that four out of 10 people who bought online did so for the first time. This type of jump, in normal times, required more than a year of activity, “said Alberto Calvo, president of Cace.

Segmented by line items, the study found that electronics chains had 216 percent more purchase orders and grew 225 percent in sales volume and 272 percent in turnover.

It should be borne in mind that household appliances is the second most important item in national e-commerce, with a participation in total sales of 15 percent.

The businessman warned that this is explained by the fact that the Argentines went out to stock up on computers and printers, for work at home, as well as technology for entertainment, for exercising at home and for cooking.

The second item that grew the most was the sale of essential products, mainly food and cleaning, and the main protagonist was supermarkets, which registered a 103 percent jump in purchase orders, 182 percent in units and 149 percent in billing.

This sector became last year third in importance with 10 percent participation in virtual sales.

“People have already adopted the electronic channel to make purchases in supermarkets; what happened is that they did more operations than usual, ”added Gustavo Sambucetti, Cace executive director.

The big loser was clothing, in Calvo’s explanation, because the consumer understood that being forced into isolation, he did not need to buy more than some sportswear.

This item had four percent fewer purchase orders and only rose six percent in volume and 10 percent in turnover.

Logistics problems

Although the study did not cover logistics activity, Cace executives recognized that this jump in virtual sales generated problems in product delivery.

“This growth is not free, there were no delivery companies prepared to double the volume of delivery and there a bottleneck was created. Added to that were the security protocols, both for people and for products, which forced to implement shorter distances and work with fewer people. So what used to take three days to arrive went to seven or 10 days, ”said Sambucetti.

Anyway, the manager stressed that logistics companies “work to always improve under the sieve of working safely.”

More of the interior

On the other hand, although the study does not discriminate data by geographical area, Sambucetti noted that a greater participation of companies from the interior was noted.

In this regard, the executive exemplified this trend through an initiative developed by the entity, Tiendas.cace, a platform that offers tools and content for companies that have not yet sold online.

“We have 965 companies that are partners, but in this quarantine 35 non-member businesses entered and many of them are SMEs and inland,” he stressed.

In this framework, Calvo considered that the growth registered during the quarantine will not be substantially lost in the future.

“E-commerce is not going to replace the physical channel; The isolation accelerated the process of complementarity between the two channels, we are sure that they will be strengthened and that the consumer will end up consolidating a behavior of going to buy at the physical location because he saw the product online or vice versa, “said the Hunt.

In addition, Calvo predicted another growth in the next edition of Hot Sale, the three-day cycle to encourage electronic commerce that the entity will carry out from July 6 to 8. “There were similar events in Ecuador, Peru and Mexico and in all cases sales exceeded the numbers of the previous year,” he added.