Living in paradise has its pros and cons, one of which is the distance from all our major markets and I’m not talking about tourism. If we want to do business with the world, the challenges are enough to stop the most optimistic, starting with logistics, costs and timing.  

When Covid hit, we were not at home. We were working overseas. While the physical world locked down, the e-commerce world came out of nowhere and dominated the market overnight. There was a seismic shift in the retail sector. Most if not all brick-and-mortar shops had no choice but to offer their services and products online. Those who’ve been on the social media or e-commerce platform years or months before were reaping the benefits.  Those that scrambled last minute to be present on Tik Tok, Instagram and the old Fret Book 

(Facebook now Meta) had much to lose especially with millions of eager customers flooding the internet who suddenly had all the time in the world to shop online and money to spend.  

Younger and middle-aged online shoppers are generally more likely to purchase and item directly from a social media platform, primarily from Facebook (54 per cent and 55 per cent respectively) or Instagram (48 per cent and 32 per cent respectively) (Knowles, 2021). Clothing, footwear, accessories, electronics, toys, games and hobby supplies were some of the most popular bought items.  Companies took advantage of the boom. While the more cautious shoppers enjoyed Netflix and waited for lockdown to lift, the more adventurous buyers went ahead and ordered anything and everything. Stuff NZ reported pre-lockdown spending across all sectors averaged around $9.6m per day but post lock down this rose to $15.6m per day!  

The introduction of more Self-care products was fast because the panic was real for many women, whether it was their nail or hair appointment. Believe me, in my area it was real and with many people with disposable incomes, why not? Many panic bought their groceries from Pak n Save, Countdown and Neworld while others stocked up on their favourite home spa treatments and self care packages. All serve a purpose and with time available, lockdown was the best time to treat yourself when you can only stay home and wait it out. You hear that the ‘curve is flattening soon’ and that ‘this will all be over soon and things can go back to some sort of normalcy’.  

More than 170,000 adult New Zealanders shopped online for the first time during the first six months of 2020. That’s almost the whole of Samoa! Imagine every person in Samoa shopping online during our next lockdown! Mind blowing, isn’t it?  

This will be eons away because the right frameworks, services need to be in place, the numbers right but we are slowly catching on to Uber eats (Seki eats) and Amazon (Maua app).  Services like Click and Collect was highly popular among younger and middle age group online with 45 per cent of 18-34 and 41 per cent of 35-54 online shoppers planning to use curb side pickup to just 17 per cent of those over 55 (Knowles, 2021) 

I look forward to the day when Samoa businesses have a much bigger online presence to take advantage of this boom. Today, a business Facebook page is not enough, you have to satisfy the algorithm and need to have a highly engaged following. In addition, you will need a user friendly, attractive website and awesome customer service. This is why you see pages with 10,000 followers and likes with only five or ten likes on most posts. Most of your followers do not see your page on their news feed because Fretbook designed it so. More and more businesses are spending hundreds, thousands to pay for the mighty ad that doesn’t guarantee clicks on the ‘buy now’ button either.  

We can see Covid as a blessing in disguise for some areas. For instance, we are using more of our own local expertise and talent in consultancy jobs as many companies look for locally based experts. We see more local faces on our tourism, alcohol, hotel and tech ads, that is always a great thing. 

Let’s hope Samoa continues to move forward with the world and have faster internet connections at competitive prices. Businesses along with the creatives have much to learn about the many platforms available to us. The world is slowly opening up again so business will pick up over time, however slow.  

Let us support community owned businesses, small businesses which reinforces the Shop  Local movement. Have a peaceful Sunday Samoa and let’s think of more ways to tap into the boom.