If it hadn’t already been self-evident that brick-and-mortar retailing had steadily lost out to e-commerce over the past ten years, months of COVID-19 put a fine point on the ultimate devastation this past week. U.S. store visits on Black Friday were down 52%, according to retail tracker Sensormatic, while U.S. e-commerce sites increased sales by 22% to $9 billion, according to Abode Analytics. That was followed by Cyber Monday, which, at $10.8 billion, was the largest single online sales day in the country’s history. The pandemic will eventually slither away, but widespread e-commerce adoption is here to stay.
Originally posted for the Orlando Sentinel’s Central Florida 100.