His pandemic coronavirus brings about many changes in people's daily lives, differentiates habits, evolves consciousnesses. Unprecedented restrictive conditions are changing people and businesses are "struggling" to anticipate and anticipate developments, which will certainly judge a lot for years to come. Trade has received one of the most decisive blows from the pandemic control constraints and is facing, along with catering and tourism, the biggest problems but also the most pressing challenges.
Consumer habits are changing and anyone who does not adapt quickly and aggressively will probably be left out of the market. E-commerce is constantly gaining fans and shaping a new type of consumer, who avoids lifelong market research and prefers to "hunt" for offers and low prices. This mainly concerns electrical appliances, technology products and generally those that have stable specifications and quality. But what about other forms of trade? What about "classic" department stores?
Here the restrictions on the movement of citizens seem to make the difference. Consumers avoid or can not make large and useless moves for their shopping and so seem to rediscover the "neighborhood shopping". Data from parallel surveys show an increase in the traffic of neighborhood stores. This increase is recorded not only during periods of severe quarantine, but also when the market normally opened between May and November. They trusted or even discovered the small neighborhood stores, evaluated the behavior and service of the small retailer and comparing the prices they found that the differences are not worth talking about.. So why run to the other end for something available next to their home or work?
This is a profit for the small and medium trader, for the family businesses that employ at most one or two employees.
According to a research conducted by YouGov, the movement to strengthen local stores has existed for years, but due to the extraordinary circumstances brought by the coronavirus, it revived the year that a few days ago said goodbye to us with market experts estimating that it will continue. 2021.
The survey shows that 64% of consumers prefer to shop in neighborhood businesses, with women (70%) finding it even more likely to go to local stores for the products they want.
According to other surveys in our country, but also in the Eurozone, this trend is temporary and not very sustainable. Bodies, chambers and governments are urging traders not to be complacent and to move quickly to digitally transform their businesses. The forced click away purchase method highlighted the great shortage of online stores. So small and medium-sized businesses are gaining some time from "neighborhood support", but they need to get out into the "open sea" of the internet quickly to have a future and prospects.
Stresses the need to support small businesses that, as he points out, have suffered a "heavy burden due to the pandemic" speaking to newsbeast.gr the president of GSEVEE, George Kavvathas.
"This support should be extended as a consumer habit to Greek products. To be a priority in the list of citizens. Such a move is tantamount to the country exporting and reducing its imports as it helps the trade balance" points out.
In this context, in addition to the offers we have been making for the last 10 years, supporting the citizens' movement "We consume what we produce" with the main slogan "I dress, eat, do tourism in Greek" we try to change the consumer habits of citizens and demystify that the imported products are better than the Greek ones "explains the president of the General Confederation of Professional Craftsmen of Greece.
"In the context of the pandemic, together with the union of working consumers in Greece, we are launching a campaign for the preference of the local market, through which we enable small businesses to call citizens with discount procedures, especially for vulnerable groups," he said.
«The message we need to send to everyone is "we prefer the shops in our neighborhood" so we support the jobs of our own, our neighbors».
"Supporting businesses in our neighborhood will create new jobs. Self-employed companies will create at least one job. "This is our bet for tackling unemployment," said George Kavvathas.
"Among the many changes caused by the pandemic, there are some that have to do with our consumer habits. While retail stores were operating, many consumers chose to shop in their neighborhood, avoiding -mainly out of fear- shopping in stores located in busy places, such as in the center of Athens. So with the end of the first lockdown until the beginning of the second, there was a slight increase in traffic in local markets. However, with the closure of the retail trade, the whole market received a very strong blow, while those stores that did not have the infrastructure for e-commerce, could not take a breath even with the method of click away " points out speaking to newsbeast.gr the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce, Giannis Chatzitheodosiou.
"Now the question for us is to find a way to start retail again, as there is no endurance for small and very small businesses to remain out of operation. In this context, the Athens Chamber of Commerce had long submitted a proposal to the government to operate retail, in addition to the click away method that mainly strengthens large stores, and the method of the consumer visiting the store, after a pre-arranged appointment. The discussion around the click in shop I can say is in a good place and I think it is a matter of time to implement. "If this is the case, small and very small companies that are fighting for survival will be significantly helped, while consumption will be stimulated in the local markets as well," he added.