What is Happening?

US Retail sales were down 8.7% in March, the steepest decline ever recorded. While in April, ecommerce enjoyed unprecedented growth.

However, it was the growth in consumers choosing buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) orders that was most surprising (+200% year on year).

Over the past week, Adobe, Shopify and PayPal released key data on the health of ecommerce:

• 📈 Adobe found that ecommerce grew sequentially by 49%
• 🛒 Shopify announced gross merchandise volume increases of 46%
• 💵 PayPal on May 1st had its largest single day of transactions in its history

What Does it Mean?

For retail, the impact of significant global unemployment makes it difficult to provide a clear outlook for the remainder of 2020.

However, strong online spending is a good signal for merchants and the brands that these customers desire.

According to a survey from the Washington Post and the University of Maryland:

• 👌 56% of consumers are comfortable shopping in a grocery store
• 🛑 67% aren’t comfortable with shopping in a retail clothing store
• 🥗 78% don’t want to go into a restaurant.

It is therefore likely that as cities and countries open back up that many consumers are likely to prefer online transactions and BOPIS to in-store visits.

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