The current COVID-19 crisis has thrown the global economy into disarray. With many industries experiencing rapid contraction and job loss.
Many industries and thus businesses are under immense commercial pressure, however some industries and have businesses have been propelled by the current crisis. This article you take you through some of the industries most affected by the current crisis.
Advertising
The advertising industry was amongst the first industries to be badly hit by the current prices, with 74% of businesses indicating they had immediately cut there marketing budgets. This cut lead to a drop in competitiveness in the display advertising marketing, which saw the price paid per click and per impression drop significantly. This has now somewhat recovered and businesses that rely on advertising are seeing a resurgence in income across most niches.
Online entertainment & communications
As you might expect with many more people at home on furlough, online entertainment services have experienced a boom in sales. Netflix alone has seen a huge surge in streaming subscriptions. Similarly, communications platforms typically operating a VOIP service have seen perhaps the largest increase in demand as more and more people seek to communicate over the web. Zoom perhaps now a household name akin to skype has gone from 10 million meetings a day to over 300 million most recently.
Leisure
The leisure industry (health clubs, travel operators, pubs…) is one of the worst effected industries, as many businesses in this sector require a physical location customers can visit to make money. The travel industry alone has seen an xxx drop in bookings. Leisure locations such as hotels have also been hit revenue wise, whilst costs remain similar. Despite the rollout of various government schemes and flexible landlords, many leisure businesses are having to make staff redundant and shutdown through sheer lack of funds.
Gambling
Early on in the crisis, gambling venues closed across the country and have yet to reopen and online the figures are showing a downward trend in consumers gamblingx. Although this downturn has been disconcerting for many gambling companies (especially as many more people are at home and have more leisure time), there has been an increase in existing gamblers trying new products and spending more money, particularity the bingo niche is doing well with people finding bingo sites at platforms like NonStopCasino.org. Beyond Bingo, the gambling and gaming industries as a whole are likely to see increased growth as we come out of this crisis (this has been the trend to date).
Retail
Shops, shops, shops… The worst hit retail businesses have been those that have yet to diversify into eCommerce. Many retail shops have been forced to shut down and many more are likely to close before things get better. On the positive side, many retail businesses who use to rely purely on brick and mortar have quickly adapated and shifted to eCommerce, with many local customers using these platforms trying to keep their local retail businesses afloat.
Groceries
There have been winners and losers in the grocery market. The majority of supermarkets have experienced phenomenal growth via their online delivery services, as British consumers sought to stockpile food in fear of imminent shortages. Ocado had to literally stop taking new customers on for a while. Whilst others that relied on footfall (and lacked online delivery) took a hit that continues to affect businesses in the sector, local convenience stores have been particularly hit badly.
