E-commerce sales in Europe amounted to 636 billion euros in 2019, a 14.2% increase over the previous year according to the data published in the European Regional E-Commerce Report 2020. This document, issued by Ecommerce Europe and EuroCommerce, predicts that European e-commerce revenue will increase 12.7% this year, amounting to 717 billion euros in 2020. However, the same report emphasises that the impact of the pandemic will only be able to be assessed definitively once the financial year has ended.
From a global point of view, the social and economic impact of the pandemic worldwide has already led to organisations speeding up their digital transformation process, which is no longer essentially a driving force of innovation, but also a major driver of adaptation to the new market reality. This was highlighted at the 9th Lisbon Entrepreneurship Week (SEL), dedicated to digital transformation and of which Galp was one of the organisers.
A NEW OPPORTUNITY
This year´s event was geared to the resumption of the city's economy, with a focus on sustainability due to the fact Lisbon is the 2020 European Green Capital. In one of the online conferences held within the scope of SEL, dedicated to traditional commerce, Tiago Quaresma, CEO of the O Valor do Tempo group, the owners of, among others, the establishments A Brasileira, in Chiado, Museu da Cerveja and Casa Portuguesa do Pastel de Bacalhau, in Lisbon, stressed that “a new opportunity has arisen from the context of Covid-19 for traditional commerce and Portuguese products”. This, “at a time when the importance of the origin and authenticity of Portuguese products is growing and people are becoming used to consuming more through digital means”. “We now need to make the most of this and provide more people with more domestic products, using digital means, from Portugal to the four corners of the world”, he added, arguing that the digital format will never replace the traditional way of doing business, particularly due to the fact it lacks the emotional and proximity factors that arise from the contact and involvement between consumers and traders. Nevertheless, Tiago Quaresma regards the use of platforms to increase the visibility of both companies and their products as essential to achieving a more extensive market.
This is what the Associação de Dinamização da Baixa Chiado (ADBC) did, an organisation comprising open-door stores located in the Baixa and Chiado districts of the capital city. This year, they created the baixachiadonline.com platform, on which all the establishments are identified by their logo, thereby enabling each customer to click on them to see what the store has to offer and to buy a specific product.
BEING ONLINE IS ESSENTIAL
This was the reaction of traditional commerce in this area of the capital due to the sudden slump in business caused by the new coronavirus pandemic, initially due to the confinement measures imposed, and now due to the fact there are almost no tourists in the city and the Portuguese in the Greater Lisbon area have been avoiding trips downtown. “The baixachiadonline.com platform was developed in record time, having started activity in early May 2020, with enormous success”, says Vasco de Mello, vice-president of the Associação de Dinamização Baixa Pombalina management board. “The platform now has more than a hundred virtual stores and tens of thousands of visitors a day”, he adds.
“If you´re not online, you don´t exist”, declared Chakall, the media chef from Argentina who owns and provides consultancy services at seven restaurants, most of them in Lisbon, at the conference held as part of SEL. He also stressed that, with regard to restaurants, “we need to invest time and money in the social networks in order to gain access to the consuming public”. However, this always needs to be done with detailed knowledge of the kind of consumers that frequent each establishment. “Customers of a traditional pub, for example, are more likely to be on Facebook than on Instagram", he explained, in addition to underlining the importance of Tripadvisor and Zomato in attracting foreign and Portuguese audiences respectively.
“If you´re not online, you don´t exist”
Prior to the current situation, consumers were already using the internet to conduct market research, using digital media to gather more and better knowledge on what they were looking to buy. They would research market suppliers, assess the prices and conditions of competitors and ascertain the positive and negative aspects of the products and services available. Finally, they would read the comments of other people looking to buy or who had already bought before making their final purchase decision.
THE HUMAN TOUCH IS IRREPLACEABLE
Present at the conference held within the scope of SEL, Sofia Fernandes, executive director of the Pestana Group for North and South America, the biggest Portuguese hotel group, with around 100 units worldwide, explained, in turn, that the digital route was essential to the company in order to keep in touch with its customers, “who were at home but thinking about the good things in life again, such as being at a hotel where they had a good time”. She added that this was done “through the social networks to give people a positive state of mind”. Once the economy reopened, “the digital media were also used to pass on information and disclose news”. In parallel, an application was developed that enables customers to have no personal interaction at all when visiting a chain hotel today. However, they can still do everything they want and need in person. As Tiago Quaresma said with regard to traditional commerce, Sofia Fernandes also believes that the human factor is essential to the hotel sector, and that this will never be achieved digitally. “The art of welcoming has to have a human touch, a smile on the other side, friendly words, a 'welcome'", she argued.