The pandemic created unique challenges for local, state, and regional economies. Downtown retail districts emptied out, businesses shuttered, and tourism ground to a halt as shelter-in-place orders spread across the country. Now, with restrictions gradually lifting, a radically different reality is emerging. While certain sectors are returning to their pre-pandemic vitality, some areas of commercial life are forever transformed.
Despite growing concern over the spreading Delta variant, national vaccination rates are largely stalling, leading to increased cases in several parts of the country. Primarily concentrated in unvaccinated areas, daily average cases increased 39% over two weeks ago, topping 16,000. Experts, including the CDC, estimate the Delta variant is responsible for 50% of all new cases. Six states are bearing the brunt of the new outbreaks. HealthWeather shows that Nevada, Wyoming, Missouri and Arkansas all remain at elevated risk, with Florida and Louisiana rising to moderate risk.
Torrid ($CURV)- the popular plus-size women’s clothing brand joined the New York Stock Exchange on July 1st, with an opening market valuation of $2.3B dollars. Earnest compared Torrid shoppers with those of major competitors like Lane Bryant and ELOQUII for a comprehensive view of the brand. According to Torrid CEO, Liz Munoz, part of Torrid’s success (and its secret sauce), lies in its omnichannel approach. Torrid currently has around 600 physical stores, but attributes 70% of its sales to online purchases.
Meghan Markle, the former _Suits_ actress and Duchess of Sussex, is a favorite feature for tabloids in both the US and UK. Her fashion choices are especially of interest, and items she is seen wearing often sell out on the retailers’ websites soon after she is photographed wearing them. But how much of a sales boost are these shops really getting? And does a sighting produce more interest in the US or UK? In today’s Insight Flash, we look at whether US or UK shoppers are more likely to be influenced by Royal fashion trends, and which demographics in the US respond the most.
Prior to the pandemic, holiday weeks tended to be lackluster due to the lack of business and group travel. During the pandemic era, that trend seems to be returning. Week over week, demand fell 1.7 million room nights, but the decline was less than what was seen in the comparable week of 2019 when demand fell 3.7 million room nights. There is limited business and group demand now, so the leisure surge mitigated the loss as more rooms were sold this week (25.1 million) than in the comparable 2019 week (24.8 million).
Australia has been one of the highest performing hotel occupancy markets with improving midweek demand alongside continued strength across weekends. Amid recent COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns, however, key markets in the country are showing noticeably lower levels of occupancy on the books for the coming weeks. When comparing the Forward STAR data updates of 28 June 2021 vs. 21 June 2021, Sydney’s average decline in occupancy on the books for the coming weeks and months was 13.8%.
When the coronavirus pandemic struck, cities all around the world went into lockdown. Roads were deserted as businesses closed and sent employees home to work. In the United States, we saw major congestion hotspots transform to free flow traffic as people stopped commuting downtown to work. Now, over a year later, businesses are opening and the roads are returning to their pre-COVID state. Using the INRIX Trip Analytics tool we looked at how much downtown trips decreased throughout the course of COVID in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington DC, as well as Berlin, and London.
Our Macro survey series, which continues to build upon our COVID-19 impact series, saw participation from 950 IT Decision makers. The full results are now available with topics that include: IT spend growth, tech sector priorities, remote vs. hybrid vs. in-office projections, and hiring trends. While we can't give away all the great data findings from our macro survey series, in the full report you will find key takeaways like these on overall IT budget growth and Sector Spending Priorities.
In this Placer Bytes, we break down the effectiveness of Kohl’s June ‘Wow deals’ push, the continued rise of AMC and Massage Envy’s surprising recovery. For Kohl’s, June marked another significant step in the recovery of offline locations with visits down just 6.4% compared to June 2019. This was the best mark in 2021 and showed a near 2% decline in the visit gap when comparing to 2019. But success of the department leader’s June push becomes all the more significant when analyzing visits at the weekly level.
Last week Robinhood agreed to pay $70 million to financial regulators. And without skipping a beat, the popular financial service app filed its initial public offering. Even though this was the largest fine FINRA has ever levied, Robinhood seems to be doing just fine. As the popular financial services and investments app prepares for its public debut, it’s gearing up by spending more on programmatic advertising. And it’s not alone. The entire investment category is spending more.
In 2019, the tourism industry accounted for over 12% of Spain’s gross domestic product (GDP). Last year, it accounted for just 5.5%, many are wondering how it is positioned this summer. The team of analysts at ForwardKeys examined the latest air ticketing data to Spain this summer for international and domestic travel to uncover a few gems. While the international market is recuperating and growing to 50% of traveller volumes of 2019 July figures, it’s domestic travel pulling up the tourism sector during the pandemic
Prime Day is touted by Amazon as one of the largest online shopping events of the year. This year, Walmart and Target expanded their concurrent online shopping events to compete with Amazon’s Prime Day. Earnest analyzed the impact of the retail battle royale in late June on the performance of Amazon, Walmart, and Target. Prime Day gains in 2021 were more muted than past years with Amazon online sales increasing by 20% WoW. The lift was less than half of what the retailer experienced in both 2018 and 2019 and slightly lower than in 2020.
Prime Day is akin to Christmas in June for many Amazon fans. But how much benefit does the company really get from its promotion? In today’s Insight Flash, we look at whether Prime Day sales have a bigger impact on overall AMZN spend in the UK or the US, how much of those sales go to third-party sellers in each country, and whether the exclusivity for Prime members actually encourages sign-ups. Both the UK and the US saw an acceleration in AMZN spend growth the week of Prime Day versus the prior week.
Cash App was the most downloaded P2P payment app in the United States in the first half of 2021. Globally, it was the fifth most downloaded. See who took the #1 spot on the worldwide list here: Top 10 Most Downloaded P2P Payment Apps in the World in H1 2021. As a market, the top 10 P2P payment apps in the US increased downloads approximately 38.7% YoY to more than 90M. This total represents a 66.8% increase from H1 2019— a significant two-year gain. As mentioned in our global analysis, the United States is the leader in downloads for the P2P payment app market.
The strong results for the multifamily industry seen in the first three months of this year continued through June. The upcoming July edition of the ALN monthly newsletter will cover mid-year results in more detail, but the general nationwide numbers are certainly worth highlighting. As always, numbers will refer to conventional properties of at least 50 units. Despite various supply chain and labor issues this year, just less than 190,000 new units were delivered through the first six months of 2021.
The period around the July 4th holiday is typically regarded as one of the biggest summer sales times for retailers, both in terms of traditional Independence Day celebration supplies and other summer products going on sale, and even the early signs of back-to-school spending. This year’s July 4th promised particularly high sales, both because of the holiday’s weekend timing and pent-up demand as the country reopens.
Among the many supply chain challenges of the pandemic, one such commodity experiencing a shortage is boba—the tapioca pearls that are the main ingredient in bubble tea. A closer look at consumer transaction data for large national chain Kung Fu Tea reflects that demand for bubble tea has been rising during the pandemic, but so far does not indicate that the boba shortage is affecting the company’s sales or customer counts, likely due to the company having warehouses on both the East Coast and West Coast.
Logistics plays a substantial role in Chinese people’s daily life, and the industry is fundamental to maintaining stable supply chains. Although the pandemic suppressed the overall domestic demand especially during the onset of the outbreak in 2020, the growth in online consumption has surged since then — and has spurred an already competitive logistics industry to heights of fierce competition. What was once dominated by top players like ZTO, YTO, STO, Best Express, Yunda Holding collectively accounting for about 70% of market share
his mall index includes an expansion of the number of locations analyzed, bringing the number of malls in the index from just over 50 to 100 nationwide. We have also added an outdoor mall category which includes 100 major outdoor outlet and lifestyle centers. Q2 brought indoor malls within striking distance of pre-pandemic levels, serving as a massive testament to the continued power and draw of this critical retail format. Outdoor malls also received a boost in May when the visit gap shrunk to just 0.7%. How did the two formats recover in Q2? We dove into the data to find out.
Amazon created the first Prime Day to commemorate the company’s 20th anniversary on July 15, 2015. Promoted as “bigger than Black Friday,” the day-long event promised exclusive sales to Prime members on a wide variety of products. Despite the early criticism of the deals offered, the sale day became an ever-growing cultural and economic phenomenon. Every year shoppers could expect deals on everything from apparel to books to household wares and smart home tech.
