We are over a year on since the COVID 19 pandemic first rocked the world. We have seen the devastating impact this has had on people and businesses right across the entire world. Everyone has been impacted by the global pandemic in either a positive or negative way.
This article is going to focus on the positive impact COVID 19 has had on some business and industries in India. We have heard enough about the doom and gloom and would like to look at the silver lining for once during this pandemic.
On March 25th, 2020 India announced its first lockdown and restricted the movement of its 1.3 Billion population. This forced the entire population to change its day to day behaviour and created some amazing opportunities for businesses to cater to some new needs both in India and throughout the world.
The areas we will focus on in this article which have benefitted massively from the COVID 19 pandemic are as follows
- E commerce
- Grocery/Food Delivery
- Online Cricket Betting Apps
- Online Banking
- Online teaching
- Online health & fitness
Ecommerce
With the introduction of the concept of lockdowns people were now restricted to their homes or a range of areas close to home. In order to ensure people did not venture out unnecessarily all non-essential retail stores were closed. This meant that if people wanted to purchase anything that would be defined as non-essential they needed to do this from the safety of their own home and purchase online.
Although shopping online has grown in popularity among younger generations these new rules meant the entire population was forced to adapt to this new way of shopping. Companies who might not have had a huge online presence before were now forced to adapt quickly in order to survive. Across the world online sales skyrocketed and people now found it easier to access things they needed or didn’t necessarily need but wanted. Everything was now at our fingertips.
Grocery/Food Deliveries
Due to the fact that it was advised to stay at home unless you needed to travel for essential purposes people started to opt to purchase weekly food groceries online.
Grocery stores say -10 times increase in demand since the start of the pandemic.Food was always going to be essential but people seemed to be stocking up on more and more of it from the comfort of their homes or queuing at the nearest store.
Online Cricket Betting apps
Online gambling grew massively in popularity during the global pandemic. Since physical casinos were now closed everyone had to resort to finding reliable online cricket betting apps to play with real money. This meant that you could now comfortably bet on all your favourite cricket matches from the comfort of your own home.
Furthermore, India has seen tremendous internet penetration along with falling prices of mobile handsets. While the Apple products might simply be out of reach for a majority of the Indian population several alternatives have popped up offering similar levels of technology. This means that Indians can now place bets on their favourite cricket matches while on the go.
This gets even better when you consider the number of cricket betting sites that have now made their way into India. These offshore companies have clearly realised the potential of a market that has more than a billion people!
Online banking
We all know how easily COVID 19 can spread and one of the big concerns for spreading it was money. Online banking and mobile payments, similar to online shopping, have always been popular among the younger generations. However, now there was a need for it to be adopted by the entire population and limit the use of money to reduce the potential spread of COVID.
The Governor of the RBI advised customers to use digital banking where possible and this strategy was adopted by many and will likely continue.
Online teaching
With the closure of schools and colleges, students were now forced to adapt and somehow learn from home Educational institutions needed to adapt and the traditional in class teaching now needed to move online.
The Mumbai LEAD school launched an online platform to help teachers and students finish the curriculum. Online learning will likely continue to serve a purpose even when things return to normal
Online health & fitness
With the closure of gyms and a ban on sporting activity this meant there was an increased demand for online gym classes. This lead to a rise in gyms and personal trainers creating online platforms where they can reach their customers and continue to train them from the comfort of home. This helped many people from a mental health and physical perspective and was a great way for the industry to adapt.