For many consumers, COVID-19 is denying them of a basic instinct — shopping brick-and-mortar stores.
Amid all the darkness and despair of the coronavirus pandemic, there’s hope for a business resurgence post-crisis.
According to new research and some official government commentary, people miss shopping in stores and the economy could have a robust rebound in the aftermath of the pandemic.
“It’s clear that people are getting antsy and ready to get back to some form of normalcy including shopping in-store,” said Greg Petro, chief executive officer of retail predictive analytics company, First Insight, which found in a survey that 60 percent of consumers in the U.S. feel stores should reopen by the end of May.
In its survey of more than 500 consumers conducted April 3, First Insight also found some optimism among consumers living in several COVID-19 hot spots. Forty-three percent of respondents living in Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles and San Francisco felt stores should reopen by the end of April or early May, though only 35 percent of respondents in the New York City, New Jersey and Connecticut area felt the same. The survey was performed before New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order extending the New York “pause” to the end of April.
at WWD if you are a subscriber, or Download below
