More than half (52 percent) of the Romanian entrepreneurs who owned physical stores launched online stores during the pandemic, considering that it is a much safer business in the current context, shows an analysis of CIEL Romania, one of the most important software producers for entrepreneurs. The trend of adding an online store to the physical one or creating an eshop is an upward one this year as well, many of the entrepreneurs even preferring to give up their presence in the marketplaces in order to have their own virtual store.

About half CIEL Romania’s customers are medium-sized companies, fashion, cosmetics, food, or flowers retailers, which allocate budgets of up to 1500 euros. Most of them already own a website and just need to integrate the software behind the site with the e-commerce software.

“The trend of moving physical stores to online and creating virtual stores is still visible this year. The pandemic has shown us that we can buy anything online, so more and more niche stores will appear, smaller, both in terms of the volume of products offered but also in terms of sales. It is very clear the tendency of entrepreneurs to invest more and more in efficiency through automations designed to simplify work, to provide an accurate record of stocks and to ensure the fulfillment of all orders received”, says Roxana Epure, Managing Partner CIEL Romania.

CIEL Romania data also shows that in the pandemic 25 percent of the customers of the ecommerce solution launched their own online stores, although they did not have this in their business plan, in order not to depend entirely on selling through marketplaces. Some of them claim that they want to completely abandon listing in marketplaces because they find it quite expensive. Being in a marketplace gives visibility to the brand, but some entrepreneurs prefer to invest more in Google or Facebook promotion and attract potential shoppers directly to their own virtual store.