Amperity, the first AI-powered Customer Data Platform (CDP), debuted the COVID-19 Retail Monitor, an interactive tracking and benchmarking tool covering the impact of the pandemic on the retail industry. The COVID-19 Retail Monitor is an online tool for business leaders, journalists, and analysts, and will be regularly updated with current data on an ongoing basis.
The COVID-19 Retail Monitor allows users to assess the North American retail industry through data points related to changes in sales, revenue, acquired customers, customer retention, product orders, and average order value (AOV). Users can take this one step further by breaking down YoY trends by firmographic profile, geography, channel, digital medium, and device. The dashboard will also feature weekly insights with news from the week that may have an impact on the current data.
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The data powering the COVID-19 Retail Monitor is sourced from brands within Amperity’s retail portfolio – and offers high-resolution visibility into end consumer behavior across channels, devices, and product categories. The brands included represent a dynamic, high-growth subset of the overall retail landscape.
Data from Amperity’s COVID-19 Retail Monitor indicates that retail brands began experiencing softening demand as early as March 1st, though an initial boost in e-commerce masked the early declines in in-store purchasing. Over recent weeks, the scale and severity of COVID-19’s impact started to show in steep declines in demand and overall revenue.
Major takeaways from the initial data set include:
- Overall retail demand down 86%: Losses driven by closure of retail stores, online revenue down 74%
- Health & Beauty shows consistent growth, Food & Beverage declines after panic-buying slows: Sector performance driven by customer acquisition in F&B and Health & Beauty, and shift towards higher-priced products in health and beauty
- Mobile orders down only 18%; bright spot in social: Mobile orders down less than 25% of overall; social seeing 2-day improvement, overtaking email as the most resilient non-organic marketing channel
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The research also found some bright spots (relatively):
- Customers are still making purchases via mobile devices (with typically lower AOV than normal).
- Social shows signs of life, helping with both acquisition and retention and growing AOV +5% Y/Y. Data suggests this is from mobile shoppers responding to sitewide discounts
- E-commerce only brands, while still suffering, are only down 63% (omnichannel brands down 89% Y/Y)
“Over the past few weeks, we’ve talked to many retail leaders who are seeing significant disruption in their businesses and are understandably anxious about the future,” said Jordan Elkind, VP of Product Marketing at Amperity. “We’re committed to helping our customers get through this by understanding the current climate as it unfolds and identify areas of opportunity to begin rebuilding their businesses. Providing our customers with the best insights to help them prepare their strategies is the least we can do.”
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