Case study: COVID’s impact on online businesses

Last year we all faced a situation that was very new; not only did it change our lives, but it was also (and still is) a challenge to businesses. We are all aware restaurants, shops, and many other brick and mortar businesses were seriously affected by COVID.

But it has also been a very difficult time for online businesses. Not all online companies are isolated from the real world - some thrive only when traditional businesses are thriving. The entertainment industry that was negatively affected by the pandemic also pulled down companies that operate online.

Let’s have a look at a Google Analytics screenshot of the traffic on Placepark.com from 1 Jan 2020 to 31 Dec 2020.

Users on Placepark.com in 2020

Organic traffic to Placepark.com in 2020

Placepark.com is a platform for hosting nation-wide events in Poland. You can see that their traffic decreased around two weeks before the lockdown was announced in March 2020; similarly, the traffic also decreased a couple of weeks before the second lockdown was announced in October. The traffic was increasing slowly over the whole summer, yet, due to all the restrictions that were still in place, it did not fully recover. The spike in traffic in October correlates with the mass protests that took place in the country at the time.

It is interesting to note that the search results chart aligns with the website traffic, but it doesn‘t have the October spike in traffic. This means the traffic was probably not from organic search, but another source.

The good thing in this situation is that the vacuum created in the entertainment industry was quickly filled with online events. Placepark.com has quickly adopted the functionality of its platform with updates allowing users to host online events. This made it possible to maintain the moderate traffic and keep the business going.

Despite the fact that the pandemic severely damaged many industries, it is safe to assume that once the situation is under control, a lot of customers will be eager to “catch-up” on all the things that were limited because of the virus. Once that happens, we will see increased demand for these kinds of services. While we hope for a better tomorrow, we still have the challenge to maintain these business during the difficult times.