The second part of this piece deals exclusively with online shopping. It’s certainly not a new concept and may well be the one online activity that most Canadians have attempted at least one time. That said, there has been an obvious dramatic increase in the amount of online shopping individuals are doing. Additionally, there are certainly aspects of it that have gone through major transformations since the pandemic began.
One form of online shopping that has probably been seldom used, even by active online shoppers, is grocery shopping. Yes, attempts have already been made by many different companies to offer online grocery shopping, but none of them had sparked demand and really taken off. However, all of that has changed in the COVID-19 era. Suddenly there has been a need to be able to order online and pick up your order outside the store from the safety and security of your own vehicle.
Online Grocery Shopping
Raise your hand if you have ordered groceries online since the COVID-19 lockdown began. We have done it, and many of our friends have done so as well. Our first attempt was through the Loblaw’s group of stores’ PC Express app. The ordering part was fairly straightforward, and we were generally happy with the selection and how it was presented. But! When we went to checkout we discovered that we wouldn’t be able to pick up our order for at least a week, so we didn’t bother. We attempted to order a second time a couple of weeks later, only to discover that the pick-up lead time had not really changed. They were clearly being overwhelmed with orders.
But wait! Third time’s the charm! Just before I published the first part of this post we decided to give the PC Express a third and final try. And amazingly, we were offered next day delivery. We placed our order, drove to the store at the appointed hour, parked in the designated spot, phoned the number indicated, and out came our groceries. We will definitely be using the service again.
We also ordered groceries online from our local gourmet grocery store down the street, and were able to collect them through curbside pick-up the same day. However, this experience was not without issues as well. For example, we ordered 3 L of milk, and instead of providing us with a 3 L bag they gave us three individual litres. Secondly, we ordered a container of orange juice, and rather than providing us with a brand name, they gave us a litre of fresh squeezed orange juice which cost $12. Yikes!
Undoubtedly, members of the grocery industry have been working hard at trying to provide workable services, but they were clearly not prepared for the overwhelming number of requests in the beginning. It’s a learning process for everyone. Good on you for trying and eventually succeeding guys.
Online Food Ordering
The other thing that we have been doing with more regularity than we did pre-pandemic is ordering food from restaurants online. Again, not a new concept, but one I am sure that is being done with significantly more frequency than ever before. I don’t know what the actual previous numbers were, but I would have to think that restaurants that had earlier offered home delivery were in the minority. Now it seems that every single restaurant still out there and operating is doing so because they are now able to offer home delivery. And the reason many of them can do so is because of the proliferation of services offering third-party delivery, like “Skip the Dishes”.
These third-party firms also make it possible to select menu items on their site, rather than having to go to the original restaurants site. This further reduces the amount of work required by the restaurant itself.
Not everyone is comfortable ordering prepared food during the pandemic. Someone near and dear to us is refusing to do so because he has got himself convinced that the people preparing the food are all infected and were coughing their COVID-19 germs onto the food that they are preparing. 🙂 Or, that he will catch it from handling the bags or containers because they were packed by infected individuals. The bottom line of course, is that everyone has to do that which with they are personally comfortable.
In a somewhat related matter, one of the new social interactions we have incorporated into our lives in lockdown is having virtual shared meals with friends using FaceTime or Zoom. The Love-goddess and I sit side-by-side at our dining room table with a laptop facing us from the other side. Our friends do the same, and when both couples look across the table they see the other couple sitting in a somewhat similar position to what we would experience if we were all gathered in the same room. Typically, we have ordered our meals from a restaurant to make the experience a little bit more special. A COVID-19 inspired convergence of online technologies. We are adaptable if nothing else.
General Online Shopping
I don’t think you need me to tell you that general department store style of online shopping has skyrocketed during the pandemic lockdown. Just because we can’t go out shopping doesn’t mean that we don’t still need stuff.
A number of companies were way out in front of this and have long had effective online retail operations. Most of these have been successful because they offer a wide range of products and provide fast, inexpensive delivery. Think Amazon, Walmart, Indigo/Chapters, etc. Even if you are only a casual reader of business news articles, you are probably aware that the sales for most of these established online retailers have been massive. What you may not be as aware of is the rush by small retailers to get an online store up and running.
“The pandemic has shown most local businesses they can no longer rely on their bricks-and-mortar storefront as their sole channel for business. If the front door has to stay closed or nobody is walking in, how can you survive?”
The quotes in this section, including the one above, are from the Globe and Mail article, “How the coronavirus could change work, industry and personal finance forever”.
One of Canada’s great IT success stories has largely been responsible for smaller retail operations in Canada and the United States being able to set up online retail operations quickly and efficiently. That company is Shopify. Their business focusses on providing software and hosting services that makes it easy for retailers to set up and operate an online store. Shopify’s share price has increased astronomically since the beginning of the pandemic. It is now worth over $1000 per share. They were in the right place at the right time in history.
“Twenty-five years after the popularization of online commerce, the belated embrace of “omnichannel” selling has other implications. Shopify Inc., the online commerce platform, surpassed RBC to become Canada’s most valuable company for the first time on May 6. “All retail businesses need to be digital by default and treat different sales channels as tactics, not strategy,” CEO Tobi Lutke tweeted the next day. “
Unfortunately, the article that I have been quoting does not provide any numbers concerning how many online stores have popped up in the past few months, or how many Canadians have dabbled in online shopping for the first time. I look forward to some journalist doing an analysis of this phenomena. I’m sure the numbers will be staggering. Happy shopping folks!
Canadian Tire’s Rapid Online Response
As I was preparing to write the section of this piece dealing with general online shopping, up popped an article in the Globe and Mail that mentioned some very specific information about Canadian Tire Corp’s (CTC) various online retail operations. That article was “Canadian Tire sees permanent shift in online shopping habits in wake of COVID-19 pandemic” by Susan Krashinsky Robertson.
The following statements made by CTC’s chief executive officer, Greg Hicks, reinforced what I was hearing and reading. We are probably at a tipping point in online retailing. The conclusion I am drawing from all of this is that many, many folks who would never even have considered shopping online have been doing so since the COVID-19 lockdown began. And, it is safe to say that this trend won’t be going back to the status quo when things get back to normal.
‘The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the approach to e-commerce at Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd., as executives believe a surge in online spending portends longer-term changes to the retail business.
“We believe COVID-19 has permanently shifted the shopping behaviour of many,” president and chief executive Greg Hicks said on a conference call with analysts to discuss the company’s first-quarter earnings on Thursday. The company is now “going to pour gas on” an existing project to upgrade its e-commerce sites, he said.”
As you will read below, sales increased astronomically at CTC’s various websites. The increases are absolutely staggering. In openly stating these numbers, and the problems that they were facing with the increased online traffic, CTC is taking a very interesting, and very transparent approach. I think it reflects well on the whole organization.
‘While the company saw a decrease in revenue because of store shutdowns, it was also coping with soaring e-commerce demand that overwhelmed its website capacity.
“We’re dealing with a surge of 25 to 30 times demand, virtually overnight,” Mr. Hicks said. “We certainly knew we were going to run into capacity issues with our site, but thought that we could grow our business two to three times before it was an issue,” he added.
During the pandemic, the company has seen a 44-per-cent increase in e-commerce sales across all banners, and 80-per-cent growth for Canadian Tire. The flagship site saw average order volumes increase to more than 80,000 a day in April, compared with an average of 5,000 a day before COVID-19.’
The other part of this article, quoted below, that I found fascinating was just how quickly CTC had to ramp up its online game; and, how it is already gearing up for a rapid change to a more robust system to handle future traffic.
‘The company performed emergency upgrades to its site to address that problem, and is now rethinking an already-planned upgrade to a new e-commerce platform. It was initially intended to roll out to SportChek and Mark’s sites first, but now Canadian Tire’s online store will be the priority.
The new platform has more modern technology. The change later this year will allow for greater scale, Mr. Hicks said. SportChek and Mark’s will move to the new platform early next year.’
Good for Canadian Tire. They are certainly making an effort, and we should all be making an effort to help Canadian companies survive through this very difficult time in our history. Let’s all give consideration to shopping at one of CTC’s online stores when we make our next purchases. Those outlets include Canadian Tire, Mark’s Work Warehouse, and SportChek sporting goods . We have ordered from Mark’s and Canadian Tire recently, and were very impressed with their speedy fulfilment of our orders.
I am assuming all sorts of other large retailers, whose sales primarily came from brick and mortar outlets, had similar experiences. It will be interesting to see what the net impact on retailing will be after the pandemic has passed.
Let’s Keep it Rolling
As someone who has always been into embracing new technological developments I am thrilled to see how quickly my fellow Canadians have seamlessly incorporated these new tools and activities into their everyday lives. Keep going ladies and gentlemen!
And finally, a special shout-out to all my fellow retirees who got pushed into the deep end of the technological pool and emerged hale and hearty – and better prepared to face whatever comes next. Well done one and all.
