Again the Quebec magazine L’actualitê has an interesting feature article in its April edition dealing with COVID-19 and translated it means what are the steps we can take to ensure we don’t have a year like 2020?
The fourth step is to get more businesses online.
Many businesses in Quebec have now understood getting online to sell products is a strong potential market to increase revenues.
One of the founders of LOOP a company that focuses on juices made from locally grown sources, David Côté, says in three weeks they launched their commerce platform on Shopify. Online sales totally surpassed their expectations.
In March 2020 55% of Quebecois made purchases on the Web and a year earlier it was 43%. For the remainder of 2020 Canadians spent around $4 billion online which was an increase of 11% for the same period in 2019.
Amazon was a huge beneficiary of these online purchases with average increases of 37% globally in each quarter of 2020. In Quebec Amazon added four new centres in which included a sorting centre and three distribution centres creating a thousand new jobs in Quebec.
Drastic action is required as the Federation of Independent Businesses in Canada says that one in three small businesses in Canada will not survive the pandemic.
In April of 2020 the Quebec government launched the “Blue Basket” to promote local online purchases but did not include an ability to make actual purchases an anomaly that should be corrected in the fall of 2021.
If you are going to promote your presence online Jean-François Renaud co-founder of Adviso that advises companies going online notes that delivery is an important element not necessarily about its promptness but its accuracy as consumers appreciate knowing a delivery date.
Renaud says the key is to offer a pleasant purchasing experience online.
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