London — The coronavirus outbreak has proved to be a huge setback for retailers around the globe. For a sector that is already in flux, the crisis presents two looming challenges: bottlenecks and shortages. As the experts at Infiniti Research, a well-known market intelligence company, continue to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on global retail business, they have traced a pattern similar to Chinese retailers striving to meet the needs of both their workers and their customers amid the early stages of the pandemic, that is affecting retailers across countries such as the U.S., UK, Europe, Italy, Australia and Japan.
The challenge varies across segments in the retail sector. In the grocery sector, for instance, as the customers begin to stockpile and panic-buy, many stores are faced with the challenges of coping with the sudden surge in traffic and demand at both physical and online stores. At this juncture, scaling up operations to meet the demands could prove to be particularly hard given the fact that the pandemic has significantly affected manufacturing and supply chains and the potential of transmitting the virus at each interaction in a retail outlet is high. In most of the other segments of retail, traffic and revenue are expected to go downhill.
However, consumer adoption of online channels to meet their grocery and other retail demands are expected to surge over the next few weeks. This trend has dominated in China post the coronavirus outbreak, with some online grocery retailers reporting sales growth as high as 200% when compared to the previous year’s sales. The ability to meet the skyrocketing consumer demand will be the real challenge for retailers across the globe over the next few months. All segments across the retail sector must be prepared to act quickly to mitigate the impact of such turbulence, while also learning from the experience of their counterparts in China and other hard-hit countries. Furthermore, as retail companies strive to address the short term disruptions, they must also invest in medium term planning for an eventual business recovery from the impact of the pandemic.
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Established in 2003, Infiniti Research is a leading market intelligence company providing smart solutions to address your business challenges. Infiniti Research studies markets in more than 100 countries to help analyze competitive activity, see beyond market disruptions and develop intelligent business strategies. For more information, visit https://www.infinitiresearch.com/about-us
SOURCE: Infiniti Research