The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 24th March ordered a nationwide lockdown for next 21 days initially which got extended to first week of June and then the unlock was announced to start in a phased manner from June 8. This left the whole population of 1.35 billion of India under curfew affecting almost every individual’s all the aspects of life including the consumer behavior. The consumer behavior changed drastically raising the following questions:

What to buy? (Basics or luxuries),
When to buy? (now or defer),
From where to buy? (Locally; offline or online).
The answer to the questions was in the nature of the lockdown and the seriousness of the situation. People rushed to buy the basic amenities and healthcare goods (masks, hand sanitizers, gloves, medicines needed for immunity ). They tried to as much possible not to sunk their capital in luxuries.
People tried to buy the basics now and defer the luxuries for future. People not only preferred but where compelled to buy from online mode as they didn’t wanted any contact or any chance of risking their health. The curfew was also intense leaving no option left. This boosted the sales of every e-commerce platform be the groceries, cloth etc.
A corporation’s or publicly traded company’s overall financial health is broadly reflected from their stock share price. The higher a stock price is, the rosier a company’s prospects become. In order to gauge a company’s general health, the trade and financial analysts evaluate the trajectory of stock prices. They hugely rely on earning histories and price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios. The main application of these earning histories and price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios is to signal whether a company’s share price adequately reflects its earnings. All of this data aids analysts and investors in determining a company’s long-term viability.
A company that is profiting from its product or service is more likely, to see the price of shares of company stock rise. Profits, called "earnings" also help investors know which companies are successful, which generally makes the shares more valuable and boosts their price.

Data of stock prices of major e-commerce company (Amazon):

Date Open High Low Close* Adj. close** Volume
02-Sep-2020 3,547.00 3,552.25 3,486.69 3,531.45 3,531.45 39,31,500
31-Aug-2020 3,408.99 3,495.00 3,405.00 3,450.96 3,450.96 41,85,900
10-Mar-2020 1,870.88 1,894.27 1,818.17 1,891.82 1,891.82 71,33,300
06-Mar-2020 1,875.00 1,910.87 1,869.50 1,901.09 1,901.09 52,73,600
05-Dec-2019 1,763.50 1,763.50 1,740.00 1,740.48 1,740.48 28,23,800

*Close price adjusted for splits. **Adjusted close price adjusted for both dividends and splits.
Data is taken from the website yahoo finance(https://in.finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMZN/history/)

Analysis of Data:

Before Covid-19 the stock price of amazon (05-Dec-2019) was only 1740.48, this was the time when there were cases of Covid-19 only in China. The economy in India was running as usual. After few days of lockdown this started to increase as on 10-Mar-2020 it was 1891.92 . The stock price of the giant e-commerce company gained heights after the lockdown period. The data on 02-Sep-2020 clearly shows this trend as on this date the Amazon’s stock price went up to a high of 3531.45. The percentage change calculated from 05-Dec-2019 to 10-Mar-2020 is 8.70105% increase and from 10-Mar-2020 to 02-Sep-2020 is 86.6596% increase.
This analysis shows how Covid-19 changed the market for e-commerce market in India. This change was also reflected in the seller market as Amazon India’s vice-president—seller services, told in an interview that the online marketplace has consistently witnessed 50 per cent increase in seller registration and search terms like “sell online” and “sell on Amazon” post the opening up of lockdown, when compared with the pre-COVID numbers. He also spoke about the government’s plan on mandating e-commerce platforms to have a ‘country of origin’ tag on items listed and whether that could play a role in customer’s purchasing choice. This was reported by Indian Express.
“A survey by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said Covid-19 induced and health and hygiene concerns have not only resulted in an increase in the share of online spends by existing digital buyers on Amazon, Flipkart, Grofers, BigBasket, and other e-retailers, there has been a significant increase in new user adoption as well. First time online shoppers have increased 1.2 times during the lockdown in comparison to the pre-Covid scenario. The increase was highest for food and essential goods category with fresh foods category witnessing a maximum jump of 1.56 times in new users followed by 1.43 times for buying staples, and 1.32 times for packaged foods and beverages showed BCG’s latest consumer sentiment survey of 3,000 consumers from metros to Tier-IV cities from July 20 to August 2. The increase in first-time online buyers was also significant in categories including household care (1.38 times ), personal care (1.33 times), non-prescription medicines (1.29 times ), etc.,” reported by Financial Express.

Email:-fe19fahid@mse.ac.in