Pandemic Sent April's Electronics Store Sales Plummeting 64.8% Says NRF
After a record 8.3% falloff in March, April’s retail sales drop nearly doubled to 16.4%, with electronics and appliance store sales plummeting 64.8%, reported the National Retail Federation Friday. NRF CEO Matthew Shay said it's “not a surprise given the…
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current state of affairs.” Most retail stores have been closed, and “we are in the midst of historic unemployment.” During such times, discretionary spending takes a back seat to essentials, he said. With many businesses starting to re-open in May, CARES Act relief payments and pent-up demand “should provide some degree of post-shutdown rebound," said NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz. Spending will be "far from normal and may be choppy going forward,” he said. NRF will need more data to determine whether the fundamentals of the economy “have been damaged and how badly." Kleinhenz said the reliability of April’s numbers could be “questionable” because many retailers whose businesses were closed were not in their offices to respond to the Census Bureau’s monthly survey of sales data. Every category of retail except online was down on a monthly basis in April, including grocery stores and others that had a surge in March as consumers stocked up; online and other non-store sales were up 8.4 percent month-over-month, it said. Comscore reported Thursday that overall e-commerce visits and spending grew 13% via desktop and mobile vs. March 2019. Online CE sales also grew 13%, it said. The consumer packaged goods and grocery category had a 90% jump in spending in March “as consumers flock to online food delivery services” during the pandemic.