Online shopping

The Health Ministry has announced a series of measures to be taken in 11 sectors in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus as Turkey has already rolled out its normalization plan.

The new measures are mostly directed at retail stores, such as white goods shops, supermarkets, gas stations, and real estate agencies.

As the food service sector reopened for business this week following over two months with its shutters down, a consumer survey found that two-thirds of consumers do not intend to visit any restaurants this year, while almost a third of Greeks will not be going on holiday this year.

Online commerce recorded an even higher growth rate in April than in March, as consumers continued to shop from e-stores - and not just for food and pharmaceuticals - as almost all conventional retail stores were shuttered by government order.

One in two Romanians who have access to the internet currently buys food, coffee and hygiene products online, and over 60% of respondents intend to continue buying online, according to an iVox.ro study commissioned by Blugento, a Romanian company, provider of complete eCommerce solutions.

E-commerce sales hit $25.6 trillion globally in 2018, up 8% from 2017, according to the U.N.'s trade and development body on April 27. 
The estimated 2018 e-commerce sales value, which includes business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) sales, was equivalent to 30% of global GDP that year, according to U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Online shopping is continuing to increase in the European Union (EU). Together with increasing use of the internet and improving security standards, consumers appreciate the possibilities of being able to shop anytime, anywhere, with access to a wide range of products and easy price comparisons.

Consumers have increasingly moved shopping to online platforms in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak which is also forcing Turkey's retailers to adapt to this new trend.

The country has introduced a series measures and restrictions to curb the spread of the virus, including the closure of shopping malls and non-essential stores.

One of the big winners of the Greek lockdown has been jigsaw puzzles. Greeks both young and old have sent online sales of this category of table games soaring 1,654 percent month-on-month, according to a survey that tracked the switch of consumers to online purchases because of the Covid-19 restrictions.

Greek supermarkets are trying to handle the sudden jump in demand at their online stores through cooperations with courier companies, online food order and delivery platforms, and even Uber. This is in a period when their physical stores have also come under great pressure due to panic buying amid the coronavirus outbreak, especially last month.

The penetration of e-stores in Greece has soared in the last year, with the share of the population that has shopped online rising from 21 percent at the end of 2019 to 44 percent in late March and early April - i.e.