During the holiday season of 2020, there are many customers who are choosing to shop online rather than go to brick-and-mortar stores during the coronavirus pandemic. Economic analysts are expecting this year’s holiday sales to be a decrease in comparison to the year prior. However, since many shoppers are still at home, measuring the economic activity of the holiday season may be best presented in evaluating online sales. Companies found fewer sales in stores on Black Friday in November, but an increase in sales on Cyber Monday because online is the preferred way to shop for many people this year.
In order to try to get people out into the stores, many of them are offering discounts for shopping in the store or taking advantage of curbside pick-up, which seems to be a comfortable way for customers to make purchases. Even though the stores are coming up with creative ways to provide shoppers with delivery options that are sanitized in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus, it is still projected that sales in 2020 will be a high number in regards to online shopping and a lower number relative to traditional shoppers.
Since many companies rely on the holiday season to generate 20% of total revenue for the year, some of them will have to find a way to increase sales in order to at least match the amount of revenue they generated last year. The fact that many businesses could not operate during the shutdown in the United States, it is going to be very challenging for stores to generate more revenue than in previous years. Lower economic activity within stores may seem like bad news, but the good news is that at least two coronavirus vaccines are being tested in the U.S. right now, which could lead to vaccinations taking place in quarter 1 of 2021, and a powerful resurgence of people going back to shopping the way they normally do by quarter 2 of 2021.
Every store has all of its popular items out of stock. This could be because people made many purchases online for store pickup, or the retailers distributed the number of products based on metrics that indicate how many customers they are likely to have during the holiday season. The answer could be both, but the unfortunate reality is that many people expecting to give gifts on Dec. 25th may have to wait a couple of days to get products mailed to their local store for pickup. Due to this fact, stores may actually see an increase in economic activity in the days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Or at least that is what the store are preparing for.
While retail is not doing so well during the pandemic, stores like Walmart and grocery stores have shown the ability to remain open during the coronavirus pandemic. They set policies in place that require all shoppers to wear a mask, and there is sanitation for shopping carts and customer’s hands. The product availability in these stores have improved significantly since to start of the coronavirus, where demand for products like toiletries and hand sanitizer were limited and very difficult to purchase. Even though the world is at a much severe level in regards to the number of new cases of coronavirus, the stores have done a better job of keeping essential products on the shelf.
Companies are doing whatever they can to keep their customer base in a safe environment while they shop. As long as they require mask and social distancing it should be safe to go out to the department stores and check out their inventory. The unfortunate reality is that customers may not find much in the store because of the number of shoppers that decided to buy products online this year.