No one’s been a winner during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a year when millions of lives were lost, a huge portion of the population were trapped in their houses, the elderly were effectively imprisoned in care homes, economies crashed, the job market slumped, and even those who profited in 2020 would rather the pandemic hadn’t happened.
Yet, even amidst the chaos of covid, it’s undeniably that some businesses have weathered the storm better than others.
Certain sectors of the economy and SMEs with a strong online presence found their profit margins unaffected by 2020’s harrowing events, while others saw their fortunes soar.
With that in mind, here are a few of the business sectors that became successes during the coronavirus outbreak.
As people were stuck in their homes for most of the year, DIY became a therapeutic way to pass the time for many.
And with that focus came a dramatic increase in sales for many DIY companies – brands like Direct Building Products saw a sizeable uptick in sales during 2020.
According to Statista, DIY-related activities increased by 50 per cent in the UK during the pandemic, while sales of paints, glass and miscellaneous hardware increased by 20.3% in February 2021 when compared to the previous year.
But can hardware stores maintain their momentum as national lockdowns ease?
Speaking to Logo Brand, Steve Collinge from Insight DIY thinks so. ‘Home improvement is now becoming more of an ongoing process,’ he said, ‘where we are continuously searching and investing in new ways to improve and update our homes and gardens.’
So, don’t expect the DIY boom to fizzle out any time soon.
Comfort food was a major theme of the pandemic. And with restaurants unable to open their doors for most of the year, takeaway menus offered a vital form of respite.
According to statistics from Big Hospitality, the combined value of takeaway and delivery food orders increased by 317 per cent in February 2021 when compared with February 2020, while the volume of orders was 19.6 million.
Speaking to the Guardian, the chief executive of Just Eat Takeaway.com Jitse Groen said, ‘The progress in the UK is particularly exciting: order growth of 58 per cent, and we have increased our delivery orders nearly fivefold in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019.
‘In 2021, we will continue to invest in price leadership, improving our service levels and expanding our offering to restaurants and consumers.’
Online delivery service Amazon was already thriving prior to the pandemic – but by July 2020 it had doubled its quarterly profits to $5.2bn (£3.95bn), compared with $2.6bn in July 2019.
A large part of these gains can be attributed to the online store being one of the few viable outlets open for business. With almost every shop on the high street closed, Amazon and its infamously fast delivery service easily outstripped the competition.
That’s our list. Did you shop at any of these retailers during the pandemic? Let us know in the comments below.