By Gillaila Thomas
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Online shopping has moved quickly from being merely a distraction for consumers to a necessity for purchasing groceries, medicines and household items as the COVID-19 pandemic moved through the nation and the rest of the world. Business owners on the receiving end of the customer orders have been either elated or frustrated.
“This pandemic made it very difficult because I am a first-time business owner,” said Shanice Carroll, CEO of the online store Serenity Skin Essentials (S K E): The Beauty Center. “I honestly felt unprepared.”
Carroll said she started her online store last June in the midst of the pandemic. Her products include homemade natural skincare items such as lip oils, body butter, scrubs, candles, etc. Although online, Carroll stressed that she takes the necessary precautions recommended in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines in producing, selling and shipping her products.
“My sales have increased 78% since the end of October 2020 because people were hesitant with buying from a business that sales homemade products,” said Carroll, comparing her business with brick-and-mortar retail.
Online business, also known as E-commerce, is defined as businesses that use the internet to buy or sell goods with purchases and transfer of money achieved in a variety of ways. Since last April, the Labor Department said that U.S. digital buyers have increased in pharmacy, health or beauty products by 44%. By 2025, officials estimated there will be about 160.2 million online buyers in the United States. For Amazon, the coronavirus has impacted their skincare products by increasing their sales growth of 8%.
E-commerce has been increasing worldwide by about 20 percent each year, EPS News reported recently. Some experts predict that the COVID-19 restrictions prohibiting regular retail sales will force significant growth in online shopping in the future.
D’Auna Coley first operated her business, D’Amour and Company, in-person but moved to online sales on Sept. 13, 2017. The CEO sells lashes, lip-gloss, body scrubs, lip oils, etc. All of her products are personally handmade. From the time Coley started the business until now, she said her sales have increased roughly 40%.
Initially, Coley said, “My sales decreased because the majority of my sales come from working on-foot. For example, walking through the mall with my lashes on from my business, most women would stop me and ask about them which later would result to them purchasing from my online store.”
Some online businesses used other resources to increase sells. Social media have been a popular resource to spread the word about online businesses.
“I had to create a team of supporters [who] would help create a domino effect where one person would try my product, then another person would, which would lead to more people purchasing my product,” said Devrin Jamar, the CEO and owner of Get Right Beard.
Jamar started his online business in the midst of the pandemic last June. He said sells have increased about 40% since he started his business of unisex products that focus on moisturizing healthy hair and beards.
Jamar said he was influenced by another black-owned business which had a great number of customers. He said he felt that there were not enough black-owned beauty brands so he started his own.
The drawback?
“COVID-19 has made vending harder because nobody wants to come out to vending events during COVID-19,” Jamar said.