Online Businesses Thrived in 2020 amid COVID-19

With the economy barely keeping up amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, essential businesses such as remittance centers, groceries, along with the food and beverage and finance sectors are what keeps the economy moving. However, businesses engaged in online selling also experienced an increase in profit in 2020.

An entrepreneur in a renowned mall in Manila said that despite the “new normal,” she is still having a hard time selling her merchandise. She admitted that her revenue has a big difference compared when the pandemic still wasn’t present, saying “we were really badly affected by the pandemic.”

Meanwhile, according to Robert Dan J. Roces, Chief Economist at Security Bank Corp, it’s high time that entrepreneurs learn and engage more in online marketing to sell their products.

Roces also said that production nowadays isn’t that huge that it used to.

In relation to essential products, food has been doing good in terms of profit even when the country was placed under stricter quarantine protocols.

Another 52 year-old woman also shared that she started selling cakes online in the first months of 2020. She added that despite having fewer customers than the usual, she still managed to increase her profit by adding reasonable prices to her products.

Adapting to new norms in terms of embracing digitalization helped other merchants, as those who partnered up with online shopping apps Lazada and Shopee among others, said that their sales doubled during the pandemic.

Shopee recently announced that the recent 12.12 sale broke records as 12 million items were sold in less than 30 minutes, peaking at a staggering 1 million items sold in a single minute.

Lazada also thrived during the pandemic, reporting that daily sales grew by 2.5 times in 2020 as the country experienced an e-commerce boom with customers followed quarantine protocols amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Some entrepreneurs adapted easily to the new normal of doing business by having an online presence,” Roces said. (MLC)