Publication record
- Original publication period
- January–June 2020
- Digitized / uploaded online
- August 10, 2026
The digitization/upload date records when this file was added to the website; it is not the article's original publication date.
Abstract
Lockdown restrictions did not merely reduce demand; they broke the ordinary route by which customers discovered, evaluated, purchased, received, and repurchased from microenterprises. This strategic review examines alternative marketing as the redesign of that route rather than a shift to social-media promotion alone. Evidence available through 2021 is organized into four operating jobs: making the offer discoverable, reducing uncertainty, completing a low-friction transaction, and fulfilling safely and reliably. The synthesis shows why tactics that generate attention may fail when payment, inventory, delivery, or customer recovery is weak. It also considers low-technology strategies such as neighborhood resellers, pre-order schedules, product bundles, and shared delivery. A minimum viable marketing system is proposed for resource-constrained firms, together with measures tied to orders and repeat business rather than likes. The article is a conceptual review and does not claim performance data from particular enterprises.