What you need to know:

• The PAS Group Digital boss Anna Samkova says marketers need to be aware the spike in e-commerce isn't enough to save a brand's omnichannel strategy.
• Samkova says despite brands in her portfolio like Everlast seeing growth of 700%, it's important not to dwell too much on digital-only growth
• According to NAB, online retail still represents an estimated 9.7% of all retail spending but has grown in the past couple of months. NAB says while broader retail sales have slowed, consumers that are still spending are doing so with an increased online focus.
• Online shopping year-to-date data drawn from Rakuten Advertising's affiliate network of over 200 Australian retailers shows a 49% increase in overall order volume.
• Rakuten says there was a 28% month-on-month increase from February to March and a further 29% rise from March to April.

Don't dwell too much on digital-only

Retail brands are touting huge surges in e-commerce sales since the beginning of lockdown restrictions. The likes of Solomon Lew's Premier Retail, owner of Myer, Just Jeans and Smiggle, has reportedly doubled online sales in the past six weeks.

The likes of Accent Group, which owns footwear stores Hype DC and Platapus, says online sales are approaching one million dollars a day, up from $200,000 since shutting its entire store network.

However, The PAS Group GM of Digital Anna Samkova, offers a pragmatic warning to those focusing their attention on the e-commerce success stories.

Speaking on an Mi3 Audio Edition about Google's coming cookie apocalypse and the shake-out coming in 15 months for first and third-party customer and user data, Samkova says it's important to "find positives" but the market needs to "call a spade a spade" for COVID's impact on retailer omnichannel strategies.

"All these conversations around online being up 200 to 700%, it might be true but in the omnichannel environment, it can be irrelevant because it still doesn’t cover the cost of the overheads that you’re dealing with," she says.

In some categories PAS Group online sales were 700% up, like the Everlast brand, which sells sporting goods and apparel, an area that has seen some of the strongest retail growth.

According to research from Rakuten Advertising's affiliate network of 200 retailers, order volume in the Sporting Goods category has seen a massive 600% increase from February to March as Australians started isolation measures.

"I prefer not to engage in those conversations around how well the digital is performing because it should be doing well. If it’s not when all stores are closed and you’re not capitalising on that [increased traffic], then you don’t know what you’re doing. You’ve also probably got a shaky digital marketing strategy to begin with," Samkova says.

With restrictions lifting over the coming weeks in-line with the Federal Government's plan to restart the economy, footfall could increase as people return to 'normality'.

The likes of home entertainment retailer, JB Hi-Fi, which has managed to keep its doors open throughout lockdown, is one exception to the overall retail sales collapse, reporting total sales up 11.6% and comparable sales up 11.3%. The Good Guys total sales and comparable sales both grew 13.9% in a Q3 update.

However, retail owners such as Lew have indicated a keener interest in negotiating rent and a preparedness to terminate lease arrangements with landlords to focus more on their online businesses.

Online retail the new norm

Brands across Australia have begun to see similar opportunities as Lew, with countless predictions around the longevity of the COVID e-commerce halo effect.

Accent Group CEO Daniel Agostenilli says online sales makeup close to half of total sales and could hold at 25-30% by the end of the year.

While it’s not been a picture of growth across all retailer verticals, the shoots of recovery can already be seen in Apparel & Accessories according to Rakuten, which, having seen minimal MoM growth from February to March, saw a significant recovery in April, with a +40% MoM increase in orders.

In line with increased content consumption trends observed across media, orders driven by content publishers and subnetworks increased +24% MoM from February to March, and a further +53% from March to April.

“This period of instability and uncertainty in the retail sector induced by COVID-19 has not been easy, yet what this data shows is that, through the turbulence, there have been clear and marked gains made by retailers in a position to adapt and capitalise on the new norms imposed on the lives of Australians," Rakuten Advertising Senior VP APAC Stuart McLennan says.

“As we all look towards the day when the lives of consumers and retailers can begin to return to their pre-Coronavirus conditions, the insights gleaned from this period of intense discovery, adaptation and data gathering will provide significant value for smart brands and businesses preparing to re-emerge stronger and better equipped for the future.”

NorthSouth Advertising Co-Founder James Gilchrist previously told Mi3 that areas such as SEO and paid search would also reap the benefits of the e-commerce spike, as brands should consider the two, their "new digital shopfronts".

"Those clients that were set up in terms of return on ad spend reporting and had a real understanding of where their revenue was coming from are less in the dark in this stage," Gilchrist says. "What you'll see now more than ever is clients ‘sharpening the blade’ of acquisition media as a result, and paid search is the mainstay of that."

E-commerce, customer service becoming a counselling channel

Samkova says through COVID-19, online retail has become more than just an alternative to physical shopping. In some instances, it has become a "helpline" for customers who are dealing with issues beyond the delivery of their latest purchase.

She says the customer service phone and online chat lines have evolved into a "Beyond Blue" situation, which has posed its own set of new challenges.

"Live chat went absolutely ballistic," she says. "We served about 800 chats in four days so we had to put more people behind [screens] to understand what the customers were going through and what were the painful moments," Samkova says. "Some of the people were using the chat and phone line like Beyond Blue, which meant we had to understand people emotionally, remain empathetic and serve them accordingly."

"It was good to be able to react and understand in real-time, decide whether we needed more people because the conversations sometimes went for 40 minutes for one customer. Then you have 25 of them waiting in the queue. So how do you stay empathetic but at the same time create efficiency so that people don’t get frustrated staying on the line?"