Data shows the latency between first website visits to purchases fell from 37 hours in February to 27 hours between March 22 and April 4. New shoppers to the brand are taking less time to complete a purchase.

The stronger the brand, the less time it takes to convert, according to NetElixir CEO Udayan Bose during a presentation.

He said if the shopper is not familiar with the brand the process takes longer, which suggests a need for brand awareness campaigns. Inspirational gift giving is contributing to this trend.

Gift giving through online channels skyrocketed by 80% between March 1 and April 4, compared with year-ago data.

Overall gifting rose from 1.6% in March 2019 to 2.8% in March 2020.

This trend to buy more gifts for others is especially strong among Gen Z and Millennials, according to the NetElixir data. The findings suggest these two age groups are showing the most compassion, with gift giving from Gen Z growing from 4% in 2019 to 8% in 2020, and from Millennials from 17% to 20%, respectively. Those 65 years and older also are giving more, with 20% in 2019 growing to 21% in 2020.

“We are seeing a lot of grandkids giving gifts to their grandparent and parents,” Bose said. “We are clearly seeing families come together.”

The data Bose shared highlights the impact of COVID-19 on consumer shopping behavior and retail ecommerce.

Not surprisingly, the food category has seen dramatic conversion rates, jumping to 8.3% in March 2020, compared with 2.5% during the same time in 2019.

In aggregate, NetElixir clients are experiencing a 580% increase in ecommerce sales for food between March 1 and April 4, 2020.

For Google, COVID-19 is impacting ad investments and cost per clicks, which are in constant decline. The increase in online demand with a lower CPC continues to present opportunities for categories such as food, home furnishings, home décor, pet supplies, hardware and tools.

The cost to run campaigns in the food category fell by 40%, for example, providing opportunities to find new customers across Google and Bing.

NetElixir also hosted UPS President of SMB and U.S. Marketing Gerard Gibbons on the call. Gibbons said the company has improved the cleaning procedures and changed its procedures on signature-required packages because the company saw early on in its social media posts that consumers didn’t want to handle the driver’s signature board. The company’s also offering video conference calls to help small businesses cope with the changes.