Coronavirus (COVID-19) is about to make a huge impact, isolation and social distancing measures have already been put in place across many countries including a few cities here in the USA. Many concerts are canceled, sporting events are being played without an audience, schools have been shut down; This is all a new territory for Americans.
Though people are working from home, avoiding public and crowded places the healthcare professionals are the first line responders when it comes to helping people that are affected by Coronavirus. We truly appreciate their support and dedication to the community.
A survey by Coresight Research in February 2020 showed that 27.5% of the US internet users were avoiding public places and it also indicated that 58% would go for the same if the coronavirus outbreak worsens in the country. Malls and Shopping centers were the most-avoided places, however more than half of the respondents said they would even avoid shops in general.
More than eight in ten (85.6%) respondents age 60+ said they were likely to avoid grocery shopping in person as well as going to shop in person at malls and other brick and mortar stores. As the virus is the most fatal for older individuals, they are the ones most likely in need to alter their behaviors. This will have a direct impact on the adoption of e-commerce. People here in the USA as in other countries already shaken by novel coronavirus will prefer buying things online than going to a crowded, germy store that could kill them.
E-commerce activity, particularly for health and grocery, is increasing in the country. The increasing supply chain issues is proving to be a challenge to digital retailers.
Just like healthcare professionals, we value the important role the logistics and delivery professionals play in this state of the epidemic.
As a leading E-commerce Agency and industry experience of more than 15 years, we have come up with the following tips to help you serve your customers the best:
Be ready to get a massive influx of traffic to your website for people who are eager to buy the products available in your store. Your website may see a pretty steady flow of traffic regularly, but during this time, you need to prepare for an uptick.
Test your server’s load capacity so that you can be sure that your website can sustain a big wave of traffic.
What kind of contingency plans do you have in place should the worst happen? Making sure that your website can sustain the traffic is one thing, but do you know if you are going to have enough in your supply or inventory to meet a huge increase in customer demand?
There are some great sales forecasting tools that you can use to get a clearer idea of what kind of demand you can expect to see during these days and that weekend.
Use a forecasting tool to give you the best idea of what kind of demand and sales that you can expect. You don’t want to overstock and tie-up too much of your budget in inventory, but you don’t want to be turning away sales dollars either.
This might mean just giving your customers notice far ahead of time. Let them know that due to expected increased demand, the shipping and processing times may take a little longer.
This should go without saying, but the majority of your customers start most of their searches and do the majority of their shopping from their mobile device. Test your website to make sure that it is optimized and loads quickly on mobile devices.
Don’t let your return policy be the only thing holding your customers back from buying your product. Offer them a generous return policy so they have the comfort they need to buy at that very moment.
E-commerce store owners need to be on top not only with their supply chains but also with the latest coronavirus news driving consumer behaviors.
Image Source : emarketer.com
Mike Patel is the Founder and CEO of ioVista, a leading digital commerce agency specializing in eCommerce solutions. With a strong background in business and technology, Mike Patel has been at the forefront of driving digital transformations for businesses. He has successfully navigated the ever-changing landscape of eCommerce, helping companies leverage the power of online platforms to grow their brand, increase revenues, and optimize their digital presence. Under his leadership, ioVista has become a trusted partner with major technology companies: Adobe/Magento, Google, BigCommerce, Shopify, and Yahoo. He is dedicated to staying ahead of industry trends, adopting cutting-edge technologies, and continuously improving strategies to provide clients with a competitive edge. Mike’s commitment to excellence and client satisfaction is evident in every project ioVista undertakes.
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We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to
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