How COVID-19 Has Impacted Distributors: Pandemic Revenue Index
Published on by Mark Hamad in COVID-19, Wholesale / Distribution
Weekly Pandemic Revenue Index (PRI)
COVID-19 has impacted every distribution company across all sectors of business. In this blog post, we will look at how distributor’s revenue has changed year-over-year and the impact COVID-19 has had on 2020 sales.
Indian River Consulting Group (IRCG) has been tracking distributor revenue throughout the pandemic. IRCG has created an index called the Pandemic Revenue Index (or PRI), which gives a snapshot of how distributors’ sales are doing during the COVID-19 pandemic and comparing those sales to the prior year.
As you can see from the PRI chart below – April, May, June, and even July sales were down significantly compared to the prior year. However, over the past several weeks you can see the sales revenue starting to trend upward, with the latest figures showing promising results. Last week (the week of July 27th) shows the first non-negative week in almost a month with sales climbing 1.4% compared to the same week in 2019. IRCG has collected data for 17 weeks now, and we have seen only three weeks with positive year-over-year sales growth, with the remaining 14 weeks all revealing a reduction in revenue percentages.
Looking at the index below, you can see how COVID-19 has wreaked havoc through distribution companies in 2020. Could last week be the starting point for the positive trends to continue? Only time will tell. One thing we do know from the chart below is that we have a long way to go from here. “As much as last week was a sight for sore eyes, it’s going to take a series of weeks before we can start to draw any conclusions considering all the conflicting data we are seeing elsewhere,” said Mike Emerson, Indian River Consulting Group partner.
Each week Indian River Consulting Group and Mike Emerson will be tracking and analyzing the year-over-year distributor revenue. To learn more about the index you can follow along on their website at www.ircg.com.
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