ONLINE STRATEGIES FOR SMALL BUSINESSES AFFECTED BY COVID-19: A SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL COMMERCE APPROACH
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has altered the way many US citizens work, live, and interact with one another. Many rules and regulations have been put in place by government officials to slow the spread of the virus because of how contagious it is in social settings. Because of these rules and regulations, many businesses were forced to temporarily close their business to the public in order to comply with the rules of social distancing and the ban on large gatherings. For some businesses, the shift from physical sales to digital sales has always been a part of their business models, leaving them unaffected by this pandemic. For other businesses with no digital strategy, the pandemic has put their business at risk for permanent closures.
This project explores various ways a small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) can avoid permanent business closures during the Coronavirus pandemic by adopting an online ordering strategy using social media and social commerce. The category of SME to be analyzed in this project is the small business restaurant. Online delivery systems, social media, and social commerce are the topics of research for this project in an attempt to shed some light on the business values these strategies can bring to the struggling small business restaurant directly affected by Covid-19.