As many years as I’ve been out of school, September still feels like a time of renewal. An opportunity to start anew, to reinvent some aspect of your life or your business, to refocus on tasks that got forgotten in the heat and lazy days of summer.
This year has been tough for most of the country, with so many of us trying to live and work under safer-at-home policies. It’s been a rough year for retailers, in particular, with so many stores closed for months due to the coronavirus. In fact, eMarketer has adjusted its 2020 retail sales forecast from its original projection of a 2.8% sales increase to $5.6 trillion in total retail sales to a 10.5% sales decline to $4.9 trillion in sales.
But there is a brighter side to that forecast, and it’s e-commerce. Online sales are, according to eMarketer, expected to rise 18% this year to $710 billion. This represents 14.5% of total retail sales, which eMarketer says is “both an all-time high and the biggest share increase in a single year.”
Dispatches From The Front 