Pre-pandemic, everyone always asked, “What percentage of retail sales are online?” What they really mean is, what percent convert online, or rather, complete a sale. They generally don't mean pure play, they mean, what percentage of a physical brick-and-mortar retailer's sales are completed online?

Generally, this number was in the 10 – 12% neighborhood for most retailers. Of course, there were definitely outliers such as Crate & Barrel, a retailer who has successfully traded much of their previous paper catalog sales to online, typically reporting as high as 45%.  And of course, we would remove Amazon from this dialog.

Without a doubt, the consumer behavior has changed, including our own. The big questions are ‘how much’ and ‘will it stick’ after the pandemic?  This new report from Nielson is indicating online sales are presently tracking at 50%. Without a doubt, a portion of this business will definitely not go back to physical.  My best estimate is we’ll come out at about 25% online when we settle in post-pandemic, a significant movement in less than eighteen months.

Still, 75% of sales generated in the physical stores is a huge piece of the pie. The big story is, we’ve crossed over the threshold of an ‘either-or’ – all surviving retailers have no choice but to operate through one singular POV – that of the digitally enabled consumer.