DELIVER recently conducted a survey to ask its retailer community how the current crisis is impacting their businesses. The results show what the common pain points are, but also the advantages and opportunities for the future of the industry.

Responses indicate that companies have experienced a slowdown of revenue due to the impact on the consumer’s behavior (52 percent) and issues with the flow of the supply chain (52 percent). Other shared pain points include having to reduce the number of employees (27 percent) and valuable business relationships being placed on hold (22 percent). In certain departments, such as the food and home sector, retailers are seeing a sales increase yet a slowdown of revenue in others, as well as having valuable relationships being placed on hold but developing new beneficial relationships.

Companies are facing both an increase in online sales yet a decrease in activity in other parts of the business, mainly due to the cut down and shut down of physical retailer stores and branches.

When asked about possible advantages experienced during the current crisis, 90 percent of respondents stated that they noticed higher demands and gain in sales while 20 percent mentioned a boost in online sales.

“Ecommerce as such is better placed for us as our motto has always been to provide a seamless experience for our consumers. So, it is not a worry but a challenge to serve our customers even better during this crisis situation,” said one participant and “I’m not worried. I see another business perspective growing with other categories,” said another.

It is clear than in these times of uncertainty, there are also unique opportunities to reshape the e-commerce, retail and logistics ecosystem and implement new strategies.

The full DELIVER 2020 Retailer Survey Findings can be found at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SKP9XL6kivAbUDJNvMm1uHy-qLnZ4ET6/view.