Listen, we try as hard as possible to refrain from talking about The Virus That Shall Not Be Named. There are enough reminders as it is in our day-to-day lives. But when there’s a business growth lesson to be learned, well, we make an exception.

When the pandemic started, investors and consumer insights groups clamored to try and accurately predict which businesses would prosper, and which would crumble in light of the new normal. A year on, we needn’t guess any longer. The stats are in and helpfully illustrated in a beautiful infographic courtesy of Cocosign.

Which companies have experienced the most business growth?

  1. Dropshipping companies unite! (Shopify, Alibaba, Amazon, UPS, Paypal)
  2. As suspected, eCommerce platform Shopify’s business growth has skyrocketed presumably thanks to more and more business owners making the wise decision to move their brick and mortar stores online.

    We’ve also been tracking the rise and rise of dropshipping as a popular business model. ECommerce entrepreneurs source their products from third party suppliers on sites like Alibaba and Amazon, they sell them on their (for example) Shopify websites, collect payments via, say, Paypal, and the suppliers send them out via delivery services like UPS. Though we’re sure other factors have contributed to the growth of these businesses, the emergence of dropshipping neatly ties many of them together.

    Cocosign also reports that Shopify has been projected to increase to $6.5 trillion by 2023.

  3. Remote business. (Docusign, Zoom)
  4. Who would’ve predicted that Zoom would become part of our everyday vernacular, a verb synonymous with video conferencing? Zoom’s adaptability early in the pandemic sent it soaring above established competitors in Google and Microsoft. Zoom’s singularity and simplicity won the favor of the public who didn’t need the extra features on Google Hangouts, and the less said about Skype, the better. While Zoom’s success is largely a story of “right place, right time”, it’s a lesson in focussing on making a quality, useful tool that people want to use. As a result, Google and Microsoft are playing catch up having adapted their tools to be more useful.

    DocuSign has seen an impressive 169% percentage change in the market cap from January to September 2020. It’s another example of a company that facilitates remote working benefitting from the office exodus of 2020.

Companies that have taken a hit

The list of businesses that have tanked in the past year fall almost exclusively into three categories

  • Travel: Boeing, Delta, United Airlines, Southwest, American Airlines, Royal Caribbean
  • Hospitality: Marriot, Las Vegas Sands, Hilton, MGM Resorts, Wynn Resorts, Host
  • Energy: Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, Bp, PetroChina, Oxy, EOG Resources, Kinder Morgan

The fate of these three sectors appears to boil down to one fact: we are not moving. By working remotely and postponing travel plans, we’ve brought corporate giants to their knees. It’s a lesson in how consumer behavior is everything. If we do not, or cannot accommodate new demands, even the most established organizations are brought to their knees.

To summarise

Tech companies that facilitate eCommerce and remote working reign supreme, while businesses in the travel and hospitality sector nosedived.

It’s promising to learn that Shopify’s market capitalization is predicted to continue to rise beyond the end of the pandemic. It should be of some comfort to small business owners that there is a strong platform out there that can easily facilitate the switch to eCommerce.

What lesson can we learn?

That when it comes to saving your business, you have to take action. You cannot rely on the strength of your business up until now to keep you afloat.

If you feel you’ve lost touch with your customers, get in touch. We’ll find out what changes you can make to your business to reconnect and re-engage with your customers and get your business growing again.