A sales bonanza

For nearly two months, most retailers in America were closed because of Covid-19, but hardware and home improvement stores, together with grocery stores and mass merchants, were allowed to remain open because they were considered essential businesses. By the end of May, America was gradually beginning to return to normal.
But it has been a sales bonanza for many of those hardlines stores, especially those clever enough to adapt to changing conditions and to recognise that customers would have time to perform more DIY tasks. Because so many businesses shut down and furloughed their employees, all those consumers, restricted to remain in their homes, found themselves with lots of spare time, some of which they began devoting to DIY tasks.
But Covid-19 posed special problems for many retailers. Some employees did not feel comfortable coming to work in the stores, so they stayed home.
Most retailers reduced store hours to some degree in order to gain time to super-clean the store in ways that were never before necessary. The reduced hours helped somewhat to offset the shortage of some employees.
Typical of many, a Midwestern dealer says that 55 per cent of his staff were off as they were reluctant to work with the public because of the virus. Short of help and with the need to clean more, he closed on Sundays. "I'm not complaining," he reports, "as the reward was worth it. The phone rang almost non-stop all the hours we were open. I did manage to talk four staff members into working a night shift to stock our deliveries. This took a huge load off the day staff so we could focus on the customer. I kept one guy busy in the back room three to four days a week just assembling grills."
With consumers confined to their homes and with more time to take on DIY projects, a great many retailers ended up with the biggest year-over-year sales gains they have ever recorded. With business up 50 per cent in many cases, material shortages began to appear, not just for any sanitation/cleaning products but for many basic products which were selling in abnormal sales rates. "Outs" on orders were greater than they have been for decades.
A consumer research study conducted by The Farnsworth Group and Home Improvement Research Institute among 1 000 DIYers confirmed the heightened interest in home improvement projects. One of the interesting facts the research uncovered is that most work was done by the homeowners themselves - 90 per cent.