Gianna Gianotten

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It isn’t an unknown phenomenon that the COVID-19 global pandemic has implications that will last a decade. In addition to the obvious consequences such as the overburdening of health care, the psychological consequences of people during the lockdown and of course the amount of deaths that have occurred, the shopping landscape is also in danger. During the lockdown all the psychical stores had to shut down and small retailers lost a lot of revenue and some even had to shut down (Flitter, 2020). But given all the negative messages and assumptions in these different times, I’m going to talk about the positive side of the changing field of retail because of COVID-19 in this blog post. Ecommerce has experienced tremendous growth recently, which would take years longer under normal circumstances.

Take the supermarket chain Picnic, for example, in the Netherlands. Prior to COVID-19, it was an emerging but not yet such a popular chain delivering groceries at home. Picnic’s business model differs completely from the large chains such as Albert Heijn and Jumbo (Brick Meets Click, 2019). However, during the lockdown, households mainly wanted/had to order their groceries online, which greatly increased the demand for Picnic. As a result, picnic has put itself on the map many times faster than expected, as CEO Michiel Muller mentioned himself (De Lullenpodcast, 2020). And not only Picnic experienced an enormous grow: the ecommerce consumer sales rose with 28.48% (Meyer, 2020).

But not only did the ecommerce grow; the retail itself changed as well. Hennes & Mauritz is convinced they will exit the virus in better shape than before (Provan, 2020). Of course, the sales fell during the first wave of the virus but the fast-fashion retailer sees a rise of revenue again. To stimulate the revenue even more, H&M announced to close 250 of its stores globally (BBC News, 2020). Since the virus moved most of the shoppers online and all parts of the industry are being affected investing in online channels will be more profitable.

I, personally, am very interested in the change in retail and enjoy positive outcomes like this. During these strange times, we need to stay focused on the positive developments, right?

BBC News. (2020, October 1). H&M to close 250 shops as Covid drives sales online. Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54369802

Brick Meets Click. (2019, February 2). Picnic’s online grocery model: How it achieves growth and profitability with delivery. Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://www.brickmeetsclick.com/picnic-s-online-grocery-model–regular-route-delivery-combined-with-mass-market-pricing

De Lullenpodcast. (2020, August 1). Online Ondernemen [Video file]. Retrieved from https://open.spotify.com/episode/1pfGApyzZ7UmRrKRMGKkg3?si=NUk-eJCfT8OH882xqyxglQ

Flitter, E. (2020, July 13). ‘I Can’t Keep Doing This:’ Small-Business Owners Are Giving Up. Https://Www.Nytimes.Com/#publisher. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com

Meyer, S. (2020, July 28). Understanding the COVID-19 Effect on Online Shopping Behavior. Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/covid-19-ecommerce/#changes-in-revenue-across-ecommerce

Provan, S. (2020, October 1). H&M plans to close 250 stores. Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://www.ft.com/content/3df5f267-abe4-480e-a46b-526b9ac0ec57

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The Social Dilemma on Netflix is the most discussed documentary of the moment. In this documentary conscientious defectors from big social media companies describe that the perniciousness of social networking is a build-in feature (Girish, 2020). It is striking that former employees are interviewed who no longer agree with the direction of the companies. According to these employees the manipulation of human behavior is intentionally implemented. The people around me received the documentary in an educational and revealing way, but I had my doubts about it.
First of all, the director Jeff Orlowski has a certain strategy how he wants to convey documentaries to the public. I quote: “he brings compelling new insights to a familiar topic while also scaring the absolute shit out of you” (Ehrlich, 2020). Of course: climate change is a troubling problem, and so is the social dilemma, but aren’t we all aware of these issues? The question is: is it even possible to change this and how are we suppose to do that? And that is exactly the question Orlowski did not answer.
Besides, as we have learned within the course Information Strategy: the development of data analytics and big data has helped us providing better, and faster information in every branch of business (Li, 2020). The development of negative externalities described in ‘The Social Dilemma’ are problems of the contemporary era that arise with a new, progressive development such as Big Data. However, they are not, as Orlowski describes, ‘too-powerful entities fragmenting attention and rewiring brains by a design that leads to an addiction to phones. The social media would be a function of their business model which devides the community and drives us to dystopia’ (Horton, 2020).
In conclusion, I found the documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’, which is in line with our master in Business Information Management, a superficial documentary that can give ignorant viewers a wrong picture of reality. However, it seems like I am the only one who feels that way about this, so I am curious about your opinions. Please let me know in the comments!

Ehrlich, D. (2020, January 29). ’The Social Dilemma’ Review: A Horrifyingly Good Doc About How Social Media Will Kill Us All. IndieWire. Retrieved from https://www.indiewire.com
Girish, D. (2020, September 9). ‘The Social Dilemma’ Review: Unplug and Run. Https://Www.Nytimes.Com/#publisher. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com
Horton, A. (2020, September 8). ‘A climate change-scale problem’: how the internet is destroying us. Retrieved 24 September 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/08/the-social-dilemma-netflix-internet-tech-film
Li, T. (2020, September 1). Information Strategy [Slides]. Retrieved from https://www.canvas.eur.nl

The changing field of retail because of COVID-19

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The Social Dilemma: revelation or bullshit?

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