Household spending remains “elevated” and e-commerce buying activity “reaccelerated slightly” through early September, said Cowen’s COVID-19 consumer tracker Thursday. The Aug. 24-Sept. 9 survey of 2,500 U.S. consumers showed slightly higher vaccination rates and willingness to take a vaccine, “but life disruption expectations and comfort with establishments continued to worsen as Delta fears persist,” it said. Respondents’ comfort level in returning to establishments declined for the second straight month as the delta variant drove COVID-19 cases higher, it said. Eighty percent were willing to take or had already taken or scheduled a vaccine, up from 78.6% in July; 6.7% didn’t know or were unsure about getting a vaccine vs. 25% in December, 34% in September 2020. Spending intentions were highest among those who had scheduled an appointment.. E-commerce spending ticked up for about 31% of respondents during the period. Sixty-five percent of respondents expected the pandemic to disrupt their lives for another six months or longer, an upward trend from May (45%) and July (56%). Comfort levels with traveling by air in the next three-six months slipped a point to 16%.
The “biggest change” emanating from COVID-19 “is that we'll look back on 2020 as the year where the world moved from working out of offices to working out of screens,” Dropbox CEO Andrew Houston told a Jefferies virtual investor conference Wednesday. “We believe this is a permanent shift.” In the “brave new world” of working out of screens, “if you were to minimize the Zoom window, underneath is this huge mess of browser tabs everywhere,” he said. “There are all these new pain points around.” It’s the “exhausting and distracting and overwhelming and fragmented nature of this modern work that creates a massive opportunity.” It’s an opportunity that’s “hiding in plain sight,” he said. “I see it as a major tailwind in the long run for Dropbox” as a marketer of remote-work productivity tools, he said.
Just over 97% of U.S. adults 18 and older are concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic to a “moderate or large extent,” reported Resonate Thursday. About a third are avoiding physical stores to a large extent, 49% largely staying at home, 27% increasing online purchases, 28% living comfortably and 50% “getting by,” it said. Two-thirds believed it could be seven months or longer before a return to normal, meaning they will adhere to restrictions while they’re in place, said the report. Some 22% of electronics customers will return to physical stores vs. 44% for clothing and 33% for banking. Thirty-four percent said shipping costs influence whether they will shop in-store or online; 39% want curbside pickup and 37% want a same-day delivery option. To feel comfortable returning to in-store shopping, 53% of customers want staff to wear masks, 43% want nightly disinfecting of stores, 46% said enforced social distancing, 40% reduced occupancy, 41% widespread vaccine availability, 28% contactless payment and 25% curbside pickup. The report noted 62% of respondents shopped in-store at Target in the past six months and the retailer has implemented mask requirements, crowd control and buy-online, pickup-in-store options for online orders. “Coincidence? We think not,” Resonate said.
CEDIA Expo, whittled down to 82 exhibitors from well more than 250 after concerns about the COVID-19 delta variant caused numerous exhibitor and attendee cancellations, had 1,400 verified attendees, said show owner Emerald Monday, saying 35% were first-timers, 58% were integrators and 14 countries were represented. “Although this was not the show we had originally planned, we adjusted and came together to put on a solid event”, said Jason McGraw, group vice president-CEDIA Expo & KBIS, of the Sept. 1-3 event at the Indiana Convention Center. McGraw noted it was the first time in two years for attendees and exhibitors to gather in person, “building relationships face to face” after the 2020 Denver event was canceled, also due to COVID-19. All recorded on-demand programming will be available on CEDIA Expo Connect until Oct. 31. CEDIA Expo 2022 is slated for Sept. 29-Oct. 1 in Dallas.
COVID-19 forced cancellation of the Oct. 11-14 Cable Tec Expo in Atlanta as a physical show, announced the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Friday. The event will instead be a “virtual experience” next month, “due to the health and safety risks to attendees posed by the public health epidemic,” it said. It blamed the surge in the delta variant and federal travel restrictions on foreign visitors to the U.S., plus employee travel bans at “some corporations." It’s planning to return the 2022 expo to a physical event next September in Philadelphia, it said.
COVID-19's “evolving” delta variant “is compelling many of us to adjust plans” for reopening workspaces, blogged Microsoft's Jared Spataro, corporate vice president-modern work, on the company's decision to indefinitely delay returning employees to their physical offices. “Our ability to come together will ebb and flow,” said Spataro Thursday. Microsoft had planned on Oct. 4 as “the first possible date” to fully reopen its Redmond, Washington, headquarters, he said. “Given the uncertainty of COVID-19, we’ve decided against attempting to forecast a new date for a full reopening of our U.S. work sites in favor of opening U.S. work sites as soon as we’re able to do so safely.”
NAB Show 2021 lost another anchor exhibitor when Panasonic announced Friday that “the current conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic” forced its decision “not to attend the event in Las Vegas” scheduled for Oct. 9-13. “In place of participating in-person, we’re planning to meet and connect with our valued customers via our digital platforms where we look forward to sharing our exciting announcements,” said Carter Hoskins, director-professional imaging, in a statement emailed to Panasonic accounts. “We are confident a digital experience will be effective, similar to events we’ve hosted over the last 18 months.” The NAB Show "is an economic engine for our industry, and we look forward to delivering a productive in-person experience," emailed an association spokesperson. "We have taken important steps to prioritize the safety of our community and are excited to host the many exhibiting companies ready to meet with buyers and get back to business in Las Vegas." The show's website early Friday still showed Panasonic holding an Oct. 10 in-person exhibitor news conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center before the listing was removed later in the day.
If there's anything learned from 18 months of COVID-19, “it’s really humility” about forecasting the pandemic's course for the rest of 2021 and into 2022, Albert Ko, epidemiology professor at the Yale School of Public Health, told a Conference Board webinar Friday. “There are very few of us, including myself, who would have predicted that we would be confronted with a pathogen that would double its transmissibility in a period of one year,” said Ko. “So we really need to be cautious” in predicting the future of COVID-19, “given the uncertainties on many different fronts,” he said. Ko’s “personal read” is that the U.S. will be “coming down off the curve” of the delta variant in Q4, “for reasons we don’t entirely understand,” he said. “The question is, how fast are we going to come down off that curve and whether we’re going to prevent a resurgence.” Fending off a new spike in cases during the “cold winter months,” as happened in early 2021, “is certainly going to be a challenge,” he said. With 80 million “eligible” Americans still unvaccinated, “my own personal opinion is that we’re primed for hard mandates” on vaccines in the U.S., as President Joe Biden announced Thursday, he said.
Double-digit import growth at the largest U.S. retail container ports is slipping to single-digit increases as pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions persist globally, reported the National Retail Federation Thursday. U.S. ports handled 2.19 million 20-foot containers in July, up 2% from June and 14.2% more than a year earlier, said NRF. It’s now forecasting 2.27 million containers in August, short of the 2.37 million projected a month ago. “With two dozen ships waiting as long as a week or more at anchor to unload at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach recently, some cargo anticipated in August may have been delayed into September,” it said. With some sailings from Asia delayed by COVID-19 disruptions there, “some cargo could arrive later in the fall than previously expected,” it said.
Policymakers could recommend a federal contact-tracing app for smartphones to enhance U.S. COVID-19 response, GAO suggested Thursday. This “could add more functions by integrating exposure notification capabilities with test scheduling and vaccine delivery coordination,” the agency said. It noted that a national approach “would likely have associated costs and require sustained funding during the pandemic.” It’s unclear whether user trust would be higher for a national app or a state government app, the auditor said: Congress should consider developing internet privacy legislation to enhance consumer protections.