Moderation in Sales Trends Emerges in E-Commerce and Among Small Businesses

Two reports analyzing sales at e-commerce merchants and small businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic indicate moderation in some categories may be happening.

Many categories among e-commerce merchants moved a few percentage points for the week of April 7-13, according to the Covid-19 Weekly Pulse Report for E-commerce from San Jose, Calif.-based Signifyd, an online fraud-prevention services provider. 

Of 13 categories monitored, eight had single-digit movements or no change from the previous week. 

“The trend toward shopping that looks a little more normal began to surface last week with fewer categories swinging wildly in either direction,” a Signifyd blog post says. “It’s a trend that makes sense. Living, working, learning, recreating, worshipping , etc., at home is what we do now. Consumers are finding their footing. They’re building routines. They’ve acquired the new and different things that they need for a new and different lifestyle.”

To that end, e-commerce sales of luxury goods increased 35% over the previous week, but are only up 3% overall since the week of March 17-23. And online grocery and household goods sales may be leveling out. Down 5% from the week before, this category is still up 32% since mid-March.

Overall sales for merchants tracked in the CardFlight Small Business Impact Report may be moderating, too. Data show that retail sales at 60,000 small businesses only decreased 1.5% from the prior week. New York City-based CardFlight updates the report each Wednesday with data from merchants that use its SwipeSimple point-of-sale technology. The number of transactions at retailers increased 3%, the first time since the report’s inception.

Sales at food and drink businesses—one of the sectors most affected by governmental efforts to curtail the Covid-19 infection rate—dropped 2% from the prior week, but the number of transactions increased for the second consecutive week. 

Overall sales at small businesses were down 4% from the week before, but down 29.3% from the baseline week of March 2-8. “While still a meaningful drop, this sales decrease isn’t as drastic as the week-over-week decreases we observed during weeks March 16-29, when sales decreased by more than 12 percentage points two weeks in a row,” CardFlight says in a post.

The number of transactions overall was down 3.1% for the week. They are down 49% from the baseline week, but that appears to be steadying. For the two prior weeks—March 23-29 and March 30-April 5—the decreases were 50% and 47%, respectively, from the first week of March.