We are now in the middle of a long-term pandemic, people are now forced to change buying habits, and this pandemic effect will be over two months which is long enough to form new shopping habits.
Right now people are stuck at home, they still need to buy so they are going online to buy, and they are buying online big now. Once they get used to it a lot them are going to stay online. Before the lockdown started, people were not going out, for example, restaurants were empty, and after it is finished this lockdown, it will take time before people start going.
There has never been an easier or better time to start your own online business than now, and the need is now!
If you are not online, how do people find you now? They are not going on shopping trips.
If you do have something, now is the time to beef it up as any work you put into your online presence right now is essential.
The actual capital commitment is not high, much less then any renovating of your shop for the cost of a few shelves you could get an online shop that will do a lot more for you than those shelves.
The question now raised if you follow my logic is if I build an e-commerce shop, should it be an extension of my existing shop or should it be something new, a separate business. My view is to keep what you have now. You need a website to maintain the shoppers you have.
The other side is that you need to consider it a start. Why not use what you have, we all need to "learn to walk before we learn to run" if you have something that works then expand on it, use your shop as a springboard. Then over time, you can extend the website into something else.
I can assure you that anything you do to add to your online presence will be useful not only for this pandemic but everything after that as well.
