IMPACTO DA COVID-19 SOBRE O E-COMMERCE DE EMPRESAS DE PEQUENO PORTE: O CASO DO VAREJO CALÇADISTA

This work has as main objective to analyze the way in which small retailers were affected by the pandemic by Covid-19. To this end, a small company located in the center of the state of Rio Grande do Sul was used, which had already been inserted in e-commerce since 2015. The case study approach was used to achieve the objectives, the data collection was driven through information available on the SEFAZ-RS portal, through ‘in loco’ observations and interviews. It is noted that with the closings of street commerce the focal company obtained a considerable increase in sales through e-commerce between the months of April and July 2020, however, in the months of August and September it saw its sales contract to less than half compared to the previous year. At this point, an unexpected result appears in the research: the enormous sensitivity that the company has in relation to the logistics operators and marketplaces that make this focal company suffer directly the negative impacts arising from postal strikes and policies for ranking ads within the platforms like Mercado Livre and B2W.