Amid Covid gloom, a new world order for e-commerce is emerging with fundamental shift in these areas

By Divakar Vijayasarathy
‘Events don’t hurt us, but our views of them can’, Epictetus, the Roman philosopher, once quoted. Covid times have given rise to unprecedented challenges and crisis, however, for the optimistic and opportunistic, there are green shoots for the taking. The e-commerce sector, considered to be a formidable fledgeling vis–a–vis, the traditional brick and mortar business couldn’t have asked for a better stage to showcase its relevance.

Globally, there are disturbing developments like businesses shutting down or filing for bankruptcies but what is getting lost amidst the wave of pessimism is the significant prospect of low cost, geography agnostic, tech-driven and profitable online business and administrative models which are here to stay. From traditional businesses to regulators to judiciary, the embrace of digitization has happened at the rate of light-years even by utopian standards. India’s e-commerce revenue growth is at 112 per cent (YoY) and 79 per cent over the past two weeks, as per CB Insights, clearly signalling a bullish trend for the sector. Some of the evolving possibilities in the realm of online commerce during these times and beyond can be imagined as: