Coronavirus triggers Black Friday-like shopping
E-commerce spikes 49 percent with online sales for food, booze and clothes increasing during COVID-19
Americans are shopping like it’s Black Friday.
Coronavirus-induced online shopping sent sales soaring 49 percent in April, which gave e-commerce companies a sales boost similar to the day after Thanksgiving when Americans shop holiday sales, according to data from computer software company Adobe.
E-commerce spending jumped 49 percent in April, according to Adobe.
Adobe analyzes more than one trillion online transactions throughout 100 million products for its digital economy index and its analysts found a 4.1 increase in digital purchasing power year over year.
The report also found that prices in some categories, like food and electronics, are also up.
“As online is absorbing the offline retail economy, some inflation is being observed for the first time in years, especially in categories that have consistently experience online deflation, such as electronics," Taylor Schreiner, director of digital insights at Adobe said in a statement.
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"Americans are used to things getting cheaper online, but that trend may be ending, and online commerce may never be the same. It appears that COVID-19 has accelerated that process.”
Here are some of the industry category highlights:
Food
Daily online grocery sales increased 110 percent between March and April during the time stay-at-home orders were put in place, according to the data.
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Wine and spirits sales
Online booze delivery for wine, beer and spirits increased 74 percent between March 11 and April 21.
Clothing
Apparel has seen a 34 percent increase with prices dropping significantly with retailers like J. Crew and Neiman Marcus filing for bankruptcy in recent weeks. Consumers have shifted spending from work clothes to more comfortable items like pajamas and loungewear with PJ sales surging 143 percent. Pants sales, meanwhile, dropped 13 percent, jacket sales were down 33 percent and bra sales decreased by 12 percent.
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Electronics and books
Electronic sales were up 58 percent, and book sales doubled.