Shoppers go online.

Byline: Mutaher Khan

This has been the strangest of all Ramazans. Little to no street cricket, no sehri plans and, much to the dismay of the chief justice, no markets flooded with eager buyers either (initially at least).

But it was hard to tame the consumerism of those with means as people increasingly turned online for their shopping.

'After the lockdown, our entire business came to a halt except for Dfresh (groceries and fresh produce), which instead saw an eight-to-nine times increase in demand. But as things started opening slowly, we noticed a 20-25 per cent bump compared to the pre-coronavirus days - part of the broader shift towards online,' said Daraz Pakistan Managing Director Ehsan Saya.

'Then came the Eid factor where we saw a more than usual increase in demand for fashion and health and beauty (compared to the same season last year). Also, due to the sudden increased online adoption, customers weren't as price sensitive and instead focused on the convenience aspect,' he added.

'Another major difference we noted was that it didn't require much marketing or use of discount mechanisms on our part to get more users,' continued Saya.

Marketplaces as well as online stores of major retail brands have reported an uptick in demand since the lockdown, which has further accelerated owing to the Eid factor.

'We would've made arrangements from our side had the e-commerce players given us a heads-up about growing demand,' says the CEO of Trax, an e-commerce-focused logistics startup

Speaking to Dawn, Gul Ahmed Textile Mills Director Ziad Bashir said, 'Customers have become more accustomed to our website. Orders kept coming in even when our warehouses were shut, so we started with a backlog. And even now, because of the limited hours and the SOPs, it has been extremely challenging to fulfil them.'

However, unlike e-commerce stores, brands like Gul Ahmed have only a fraction of their overall sales done online. So even a doubling of the volume doesn't help much.

'On average, online sales make up for around 5pc of our total volume. But after Covid-19, some players have seen that figure go up to 10pc. However, that doesn't even come close to compensate for the lost revenues through outlets, which were already in decline compared to the last year's level.'

Mr Bashir, who also serves as chairman of the Retail Council of Pakistan, said members of the representative body cumulatively sell around $120 million of goods online throughout the year. It's...