While everything remains speculative, as we are in the midst of the Covid19 crisis, many big house consultancies are trying to predict the future.
Many economic indicators are already showing a steep decline during the Covid-19 crisis.
While this steep drop in sales attributed to staying at home measures, consumers are forced to turn to online to shop as well as manage day to day activities.
This will increase the number of people dependent on online during the period of quarantine and some consumers who were not tech savy in shopping will learn new skills and use them in the future even when shopping and retail is back to normal.
On the other side, there is a segment of consumers how were always using online for shopping and food delivery and have continued to do so during and after the crisis.
While many speculate that online will continue growing after the crisis, this maybe true in Europe and the USA where online shopping is advanced compared to this region with many features such as shop & pick where you can shop online , pay and pick up from a store of your choice.
However, this will not be an easy ride. While consumers will get back to normal life, they will come back to stores that are taking the right precautionary measures such as social distancing and limiting the number of visitors as well maintaining a clean and safe shopping environment. Hygiene will become the name of the game, where if consumers perceive a mall is well taken care of, they will have the confidence to visit and shop at the establishment.
While we will continue to follow the global trend, i believe that this pandemic has caused a disruption that will affect human behavior in the long term. We will be very vigilant and cautious but at the same time there will be so much yearning and anticipation for connection, connection with other people, interacting in markets ,and eating at restaurants.
As humans, we have always yearned for experience and interaction. The experience to meet a friend by coincidence in a mall, seeing what we want to buy with our eyes, and overall the social aspect of retail that online will never occupy.