Hyderabad: Covid concerns spurring surge in online shopping

Hyderabad: Even as Covid-19 lockdown norms have been relaxed considerably, the denizens are wary of visiting local stores including groceries for purchasing essentials.

According to a survey by LocalCircles, an online community social media platform, 40% of the Indian consumers still get a majority of their essential and non-essential supplies home delivered.

To minimise exposure to others and for convenience, a majority of consumers ordered essentials via e-commerce and home delivery services. This has highly impacted the sales of the local retail stores in the city.

Explaining the impact on local shops, Mangal Ram, owner of Jai Bhavani Kirana Store in Safilguda, said, "Since the time the pandemic was announced, those running kirana stores have been the most affected compared to the supermarkets. In an entire day there are hardly any customers who come to purchase their regular ration like dals, sugar, wheat flour and others. Even, when I tried contacting our regular customers, they said they have already ordered groceries online."

P Shreya, a techie by profession and a resident of Trimulgherry, said, " I personally prefer to stay at home and order groceries and essentials online during this pandemic. On one hand, though supermarkets have opened, but one has to wait in long queue. And on other, though the security persons are checking the temperature but there have been cases where an COVID infected person had no symptoms."

S Neelam, a housewife and a resident of AS Rao Nagar, says, "While we order online, the advantage here is that you don't have to get out and also, won't get in contact with others. When the delivery boy gets the order, I keep the order outside for a while, sanitise it and then take it inside the house. So here the entire process is contact-free. During this pandemic, more than the cost that we pay online, one's health and safety is more important."

However, even though people have begun opting online delivery there have been issues like, long delivery times and price charges followed by exchange/returns and refunds. "No matter if the shopping is online or offline, both has its own drawbacks. If we buy online, one has to make sure that they order beforehand itself as the order to get delivered takes a long time. If any issue crops in the order, some products do not have exchange policies, while returning or refund takes a lot of time. At the end of the day, one has to take care of their safety," says Shivani Naik, a teacher by profession and resident of Malkajgiri.

More for home deliveries

The survey done on 25,000 respondents from 231 districts in India which states that 21% said they are buying from e-commerce sites, 19% said they are getting home delivery done from retail and local stores, while only 1% said they are buying from the malls. 11% consumers said they are buying from department stores and 47% said they are still buying from local markets.