Among the first to enjoy the virtually global quarantine were the eCommerce enthusiasts. The fact that everyone will stay at home for many weeks ahead looked like a generous opportunity for all of the eRetailers.
Their logic is simple: since you can't go anymore to the convenience store next to your house as you're used to, you will order online from its main alternative - your favourite eShop. But the problem is you don't have a favourite, because you're not used to ordering essentials online. At least not that often. And then what happens? Exactly! You don't migrate to the "real online", but rather prefer an on-demand courier service to bring you the products from that same brick and mortar shop you often used to go to. Many of us opt for a third party to intermediate the transaction with their favourite offline store rather than migrating to a "pure-blood" online shop.
And this is true for most of the sectors where the internet did not dominate yet in the pre-pandemic period. In the data collected by
Within we see some things that seemed unlikely to many: