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Goldbelly hit coronavirus gold. With restaurants closed, many iconic establishments have used the delivery platform to have their signature dishes shipped nationwide. But the question remains how long that will last. According to Goldbelly, it has no plans of slowing down anytime soon.
Over months of lockdown, many Facebook users have turned to the social media platform to communicate with the people in the next street, or even the next house. For ultra-small local businesses, usually run by a single individual or a few partners, these same groups have become a haven to communicate with customers, advertise their services and even run the business. For the customers themselves, often unable to travel to neighborhoods further afield, they’re a useful tool to connect with recommendations in their immediate area or support local businesses they know to be struggling.
Aldi is trying to strike gold in the United States. With customers more prepared to differentiate on price by a looming recession, it’s now perfectly positioned for widespread expansion. For its competitors, meanwhile, Aldi’s ascendance could mean a race to the bottom when it comes to prices -- as well as more private label products crowding out named brand stalwarts.
With the US.. still very much in the clutches of the pandemic, it’s hard to imagine what a return to normal could look like, let alone an entirely new normal. But retailers in China and Hong Kong, which have both been in some stage of reopening for a matter of months, have managed to tease out some kind of normalcy -- using a variety of new, old and updated tricks. All the while, they’re likely leading the way for the rest of the world.
Customers hate call-to-cancel policies. They’re fiddly, time-consuming and inconvenient. And for people who may be Deaf or hard of hearing -- approximately 15% of the population -- they pose still more challenges. Meanwhile, some of these practices walk an extremely tenuous legal line.
Since the start of the pandemic, unions have helped bolster safety protocols for retail workers, given them support to push back on decisions that put them at risk, and allowed them more influence over decisions that impact them directly. But for many retail employees, it's still a long road ahead until they get contract and fairer work conditions.
When PPP entered high demand, Etsy was well positioned. In the month of April alone, the marketplace sold about 12 million fabric face masks, to a total cost of $133 million. The core Etsy marketplace, meanwhile, grew 79% year-over-year. The question remains whether or not it can continue this growth once things begin to subside.
While some retailers are facing headwinds as a result of the coronavirus, dollar stores are thriving. Much of that is thanks to the communities dollar stores target -- namely, poorer regions with less access to fresh food. Dollar stores' continued success is having an impact on these areas too, by potentially driving out other local retailers.
Groupon used to be the darling of online retail. Now it's struggling to survive. What went wrong? It was a series of failed pivots, along with the fact that its core offering is no longer in demand. The question remains whether or not it can resurrect business.
People are stuck at home, making it harder for them to try on clothes. Some services work with retailers to let customers try to visualize what the products would look like on them. But they're imperfect, at best. All the same, smaller companies already on the market are seeing jumps in merchant interest, while bigger players such as Adobe have begun investing resources into developing their own high-tech solutions.
To help restaurants get back on their feet, a host of US states have permitted restricted reopening, making use of outdoor space. While it may be easy for some, it's impossible for others. And while such limited reopenings are a good start, they won’t suffice to keep many eateries afloat. The big problem boils down to the economics; if restaurants can only serve a small percentage of their customers, they quite simply won't be able to make ends meet.
While big players like Grubhub and Doordash try to get every restaurant in the United States on their platform, smaller companies like Chowbus are doing things a little differently. Instead, they go narrow and deep; Chowbus only features Chinese restaurants, building a more loyal user base. It may present a new blueprint for food delivery apps.
Restaurants may be slowly reopening, but vending machines are in the midst of a renaissance. Before, automat-style choices were futuristic oddities. Now, a number of companies are pitting their growth on building machines that can serve food. Social distancing is still in full effect, so perhaps these machines will be the future of food service.
Before the pandemic, the used car sales app Carvana targeted a generation of socially awkward app-users, many of whom were finally aging into buying their first car. Enter coronavirus, and a social distancing-ready purchasing system suddenly made sense for every generation of Americans -- including those well acquainted with the patter of a used car salesman. The question remains whether or not this car buying model will last.
With restaurants closed, high-end establishments are offering what could be considered the antidote to Blue Apron. These meal kits aim to offer finer dining options with a possibly more sustainable business model than other meal kit predecessors. Whether or not these restaurants keep offering them once establishments reopen remains to be seen.
DTC Twitter is obsessed with Tweet threads. Or, at the very least, they are frequently cited as recommended reads in industry newsletters like 2pm Inc. and Lean Luxe, and often serve as inspiration for further discussions in Clubhouse, Slack, or virtual events. Heavy Twitter usage is not unique to the DTC startup scene, but these Tweet storms are a good a mirror to expose the strengths and weaknesses of DTC startups.
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