We have all been stressed far beyond capacity in the past year and a half since the onset of the COVID pandemic. We’ve been tested and tried and many of us have often felt that we might just fall apart and never recover. We’ve suffered huge, and deep losses in so many areas of our lives, from the loss of jobs, the loss of wages, the loss of normalcy, to the loss of friends and family.
These wounds run deep across our entire nation and, despite the amount of “normalcy” that has returned to some degree, we are still recovering from all that we’ve experienced since the beginning of 2020. Although many things have made us stronger and many things have caused us to improve and become better, the simple truth is that we will never be the same. Let’s learn about the role of women in business, and how eCommerce has been a game changer.
Women are Doing More Than Their Fair Share
One demographic who has felt all of us on a very large, and heavy scale, is women. In general, women have always worn many different hats, and have borne many kinds of responsibilities, from work to home life, and beyond. However, with the pandemic, women were hit particularly hard.
Not only do women find themselves being the fallback person for household responsibilities, like managing food preparation and cleanup, maintaining the cleanliness of the home, and making sure the children are taken care of, but with the pandemic, they have had these burdens increased. Many of us are working from home, so there is more food to be consumed and more cleanup needing to happen. Not to mention that kids were doing school via zoom much of last year, which brought it slew of new challenges to the home.
On top of all of this, women are also the group who are the most likely to work in industries hit the hardest by COVID quarantines and lockdowns, which induced loss of profits and subsequently, loss of jobs for employees. Women are more likely to work in hospitality, food services, and in-store retail, which means they were also hit hard with loss of hours, and total loss of income.
Women are always resourceful, and certainly no less so during all the hardships of a global pandemic. For this reason, many women turned to selling online on sites like eBay to bring in an income and still manage all that they needed to do at home. In fact, in the first 6 months of the pandemic, US based eBay businesses rose by 34%, and US based sales grew by 38%. Eighty-two percent of women who either began selling or increased their eBay presence. They did so due to hardships brought on by COVID.
eCommerce is Making a Difference
eBay has given women exactly what they need during this difficult time. Women who run an eBay business have the flexibility they need to manage everything in their lives. They also enjoy being their own boss, and they enjoy the ability to bring in an income for their household.
Selling on eBay has been a wonderful resource to help women to bear their additional burdens and to thrive during this uncertain time.