The pandemic made trade evolve

Online sales in Ecuador grow every year. From $ 1,325 million that was made in 2018, they went to $ 1,648 million in 2019.

The pandemic made trade evolve

This is indicated by the study Behavior of non-face-to-face Transactions in Ecuador, prepared by the Universidad Espíritu Santo together with the Ecuadorian Chamber of Electronic Commerce (CECE).

According to this analysis, the contribution of e-commerce sales to GDP was 1.53% the previous year.

“We estimated that by 2023, worldwide, Retail Ecommerce would represent 21% of purchases. Today we have to rethink those numbers drastically, since the acceleration we are experiencing is going to cause us to exceed 30% by 2022, ”the study indicates.

Leonardo Ottati, president of the CECE, assures that between March and May more than $ 500 million were made in transactions.

This despite the fact that everything related to tourism, aviation and entertainment , such as cinema and public shows (concerts and football matches), is stopped and here are the main purchases locally.

The sales were concentrated in food, cleaning supplies, pet food, articles of telecommunications and in recent weeks the supplies of office and school supplies.

Ottati estimates that the growth of electronic commerce in the country will continue this year. On the one hand, because people are going to avoid going out for safety, and on the other, because they have learned to value their time.

In addition, the quarantine caused changes in consumption habits and increased the mass of customers. About 75% of sales made in recent months were to people who made an online purchase for the first time .

This implies new challenges for business , since everyone must find a way to become online stores and those that already are must improve. 

According to Santiago Naranjo, VTEX’s general manager for Latin America, buyers during this period understood that online commerce is safe and reliable, they also saw that the purchase process is easy and practical .

“Postcovid-19 will make companies change 100% of their processes to be successful. Those that manage to adapt more easily to the new models will be those that capitalize on the market, ”says Naranjo.

Likewise, e-commerce should offer a more comprehensive experience to its customers , allowing them to recognize the values ​​and characteristics of the brand they choose.

Sebastián Albán, manager of Unified Communications at CenturyLink Ecuador, believes that the retail sector should continue to evolve to meet new customer demands due to the health emergency.

Albán recalls that online shoppers value the quantity and relevance of the data they can count on, as this makes it easier for them to compare different products and thus they can make a better decision. ( I )

Online establishments must guarantee cybersecurity

Companies that make online sales are exposed to cybersecurity risks .

According to Vladimir Villa, CEO of Fluid Attacks, they are easy prey for hackers looking for information and money.

He believes that security testing needs to take preventive work and be done when product development begins to identify security flaws and breaches quickly.

Villa believes that it is essential that organizations have computer systems without vulnerabilities.

According to Fluid Attacks Annual Report on Attacks 2020, 77.5% of its subscription hacking projects have at least a high or critical vulnerability , which would affect the sustainability of the businesses, since it could expose sensitive information. ( I )

Internet sales can be associative

After the economic recession in the country , businesses saw the need to reinvent their business models and adapt to new trends in by-services. Many migrated to online sales.

However, not all companies have the money to do so. To solve this BUCO, cooperative e-commerce was born.

Andrés Morán, director of this initiative, explains that it is a multi-portal platform that aims to bring together various producers, businesses or stores to bring them closer to consumers.

This option allows companies to share the costs of portal implementation and maintenance. Morán says that it costs a company large or small from $ 4,000 to open a page to sell its products.

Within this portal, each business has its own microportal and independence in the forms of payment.

In addition, for fair trade to exist, the platform can be calibrated so that sales are made only 10 blocks around so that all businesses benefit equally. Even this makes logistics easier.

BUCO seeks to offer a fast online sales solution to small merchants, self-employed workers, micro and small companies and large companies at reduced costs.

Morán assures that this program has been running since 2018 in Argentina. ( I )