Even though COVID-19 cases have fallen, many shoppers have been reluctant to shop in physical locations, instead opting to do all of their shopping online.
With this rise of online shopping, many retailers have had to strategically adjust their business model and workforce.
Online spending represented 21.3% of total retail sales for the year and consumers spent $861.12 billion online with U.S. merchants in 2020, up an incredible 44.0% year over year, according to Digital Commerce 360 estimates. Amazon accounted for nearly a third of all e-commerce in the United States.
That’s the highest annual U.S. e-commerce growth in at least two decades. It’s also nearly triple the 15.1% jump in 2019!
While some brick-and-mortar retail chains have successfully developed a multi-channel strategy that’s been able to retain business and grow market share, others weren’t as fortunate. This year, hundreds of retail employees lost their jobs after their stores were forced to close during the lockdowns.
Meanwhile, the retail industry was thrown into a state of disarray due to the dependency on online retail. While some have sacrificed their brick-and-mortar stores and gone exclusively online, others have stayed relevant by opening more locations and focusing on an integrated in-store and online shopping experience.
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The industry has also produced an increased demand for highly skilled, high-paying job positions. The retail and e-commerce environment requires workers to be adept at all sorts of skills, from order picking to inventory management. Beyond the logistics aspect of business, social media management and customer service representatives are needed to facilitate communication between businesses and their customers.
Hiring an employee to take care of e-commerce customer service has become just as important as hiring a salesperson to bring in new customers since many customers now prefer to contact the store online if they have a question about the product or shipping, and they expect you to handle queries and provide information quickly and easily.
As online retail and e-commerce have become an integral part of the global consumer economy, companies are increasingly looking to hire employees who can help them manage the sheer volume of orders coming in. Even with state-of-the-art automation technology (like robots), your business still needs people capable of communicating with customers and processing their orders quickly and efficiently.
That’s where we come in. As an experienced staffing agency, MGR Workforce can deploy retail and warehouse workers to your business on-demand, helping your business scale and grow to new heights.
We understand the demands of the retail market and will help you streamline and expand your workforce as you grow the e-commerce distribution aspect of your business so you can add new customers and scale operations — without ever worrying about staffing.
Join hundreds of brands who trust MGR Workforce with their staffing needs by calling 1-888-796-6471 today or click here.
