Coronavirus has been declared, a global pandemic by the USA specialized agency World Health Organization. The virus is shaking up small, medium, and large business and consumer behavior on a massive scale.
Both the public and private sectors across the world including the USA, India, and China are scrambling to slow the spread of the illness and contain coronavirus infections.
However, the outbreak of this widely spread virus is posing a challenge to many business owners in China and in Hong Kong, not least in terms of the impact on their ongoing and future commercial contracts.
This pandemic is highly affecting the health of citizens, and it is also impacting the economy.
According to reports by Google, ‘since the last week of January and the first week of February 2020, search interest in coronavirus has increased by +260% globally.
Over 3000 people dead so far, more than 80,000 people are infected and 40+ countries affected. Cities are locked down; traveling is restricted, plant closures mounting. Global trading, e-commerce, tourism, health care, investment, restaurants, and supply chains are in disarray.
The Covid-19 is already having a huge effect on the website’s organic traffic and conversions. It’s hard to predict for anyone if the current trends will continue as no one knows if the coronavirus will continue to spread among people or die out through vaccination. Still, savvy science publishers can take great advantage of the situation to keep their earnings up during the low economy sweeping the countries.
News portal
News websites can make well as people are searching for coronavirus information. Posting unique, accurate data and other essential information is great. Research the virus and other past health scares to put the latest one in perspective or write about which schools, and businesses are shutting down their working if you have a regional audience.
Ecommerce stores
If you are selling a commodity in short supply, expect an outpouring in traffic. Ecommerce site owners get more traffic to their online store as people are avoiding going to malls, shopping centers, and crowded stores to buy daily essentials. If you are on a large scale you have thousands of products in stock, consider pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Don’t think to price gouge as buyers will remember and not patronize your online eCommerce store again.
Travel industry
The travel industry is to lose $820 billion in revenue because of the rapidly spreading covid-19 hit, industry groups say. As the coronavirus outbreak continues to hit stock markets hard, the travel sector is suffering its high crisis in more than 20 years.
President of America, ‘Donald Trump’ has suspended travel to 26 European countries on March 13th, 2020. People do not prefer to move much domestically either, preferring to avoid crowded places like Railway stations, airports, and metro stations.
Publishers relying on travel commissions are highlighting the flights that are available at cheap rates. Although, publishing cancellation and refund policies for various hotels and resorts and flights will bring in traffic to your site as well.
Restaurants
Apart from China, the coronavirus outbreak has spread to countries including the U.S, Italy, South Korea, India, Saudi Arabia, France, Denmark, and Japan. According to reports by Capital Economics, this global pandemic is like to hurt the global economy by $820 billion in the first quarter of 2020.
In fact, restaurant owners have seen business all but disappear. Restaurants are closed in cities like Macau, Hongkong, Newyork, Shanghai, and more. The restaurateurs have been facing declining traffic on their websites. Many famous restaurant companies like Starbucks, Yum China Holdings, Papa John’s International, and Mc Donald’s Corporation MCD have shut down their majority of food outlets in China and other countries.
Ticket Sellers
Online merchants who sell tickets for events and concerts are losing money as sponsors and event managers are canceling events to stop coronavirus from spreading. Few people are also leery of going to local events in the cities still happening because of the large crowds.
Product Availability
Manufacturers who import goods from China are worried because they have less inventory to sell to customers. This can also affect affiliate marketers who depend on commissions from these merchants.
At this point, a covid-19 recession is inevitable; investors in the World Bank’s pandemic bonds face big losses due to the coronavirus outbreak. More than half of American jobs are at risk because of the global effect of coronavirus on human’s said CNN Business (NewYork).
Nobody knows what will happen to website traffic and conversions in the long run. Online merchants and eCommerce industries might have chances of earning high traffic and conversions because people are avoiding going to crowded places. As a safety measure, people are ordering food and daily essentials from online retail stores and grocery stores.
Take care of your health and protect others by following the precautions given by the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Thoroughly clean your hands regularly with alcohol-based hand wash, soap, and water.
- Maintain social distancing between yourself and people who are coughing or sneezing.
- Make sure you practice respiratory hygiene
- Avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth with dirty hands because hands touch many surfaces and can pick up viruses.
- Seek medical care early if you have a fever, cough, or difficult breathing problem.
- Stay informed about COVID-19 and must follow the advice and precautions given by your health care professional.
- Wear masks and tissues to cover the mouth and nose.