Lockdown effects in the United States
Last update January 14, 2022 by Sabrina Touami & Heleen Buldeo Rai.
In the United States, as in many other countries in the world, the emergence of the virus led to restrictions. Across the country, authorities have deployed a patchwork of different social distancing rules, varying by state, county and even city. At the height of the restrictions in late March and early April 2020, more than 310 million Americans were subject to guidelines ranging from "shelter in place" to "stay at home."
Changes in consumer spending habits in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic have contributed to the surge in e-commerce sales. In the United States, retail and food service sales in general declined 7.7% between February and April 2020, compared to the same period in 2019. However, sales increased for grocery stores and non-store retailers, mainly e-commerce providers, by 16% and 14.8% respectively (U.S. Census Bureau, 2021).
Online consumer spending in 2020 amounts to nearly $791.70 billion, an increase of 32.4% in this market from the previous year of $598.02 billion. Online spending accounted for 19.6% of total retail sales last year, up from 15.8% in 2019 (Ali, 2021).
US Retail landscape in 2020 (Digital commerce 360, 2021).
Amazon.com Inc, North America's largest online retailer, continues to see increased traffic to its site even nearly a year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In January 2021, the total number of visits to Amazon was up 20% from January 2020 and up 37% from February 2020, according to Digital Commerce 360's analysis of the company's traffic data (Amazon, 2021).
References
U.S. Census Bureau (2021). Advance monthly sales for retail and food services.
Charts, F. A. (2021). How the coronavirus is changing e-commerce. Digital commerce 360.
Amazon (2021). Amazon Small Business Empowerment Report.