Mark your calendar:

Visual 1st 2020 will be

Oct. 14-15

Source: The NPD Group, Inc., U.S. Weekly Retail Tracking Service

How come? For one, we’ve been pumping the economy with stimulus checks and federal unemployment benefits in addition to state unemployment benefits for those who lost their jobs. But also, with so many people bound to their homes, you can imagine there’s also been a shift in how people spend their money: we’ve been going out less ( UberEats pulled in $3.7 billion in gross bookings, representing a 73% increase YoY), we have watched movies at home instead of in theaters ( Netflix added 15.8M subscribers in Q1, almost twice what Wall Street expected), we couldn’t go to the gym ( Peloton membership increased 30% QoQ in Q2), we all have more time on our hands to tinker with the electronic gear (and to really learn all the fancy camera features, as was reported in our The COVID-19 Mitigation and What's Next Survey Report), and finally, we couldn’t visit our local retailers and chose to buy from online retailers instead ( Amazon revenues were up 26% YoY in Q1).

How about camera sales, which are part of these overall consumer electronics data? Well, they form a more complicated picture, partially because cameras were already on a YoY downward trajectory before COVID-19, and also have seen shifts within this category from DSLRs toward mirrorless cameras.

The overall category of interchangeable lens cameras (DSLRs, mirrorless cameras) dropped 42% YoY in dollar sales, whereas this category had dropped less (32%) in the 7 weeks prior. I.e. the downward trend accelerated, to some extent caused by a lower average sales price during the pandemic (discounts during the lockdown). Mirrorless cameras sales faired a bit better: in terms of units, they declined less YoY during the 7 “pandemic” weeks leading up to week 3 of May than they’d been declining before these 7 weeks.

This leaves the question: What is in store for us all? First, while we’re all desperate to hear some good news, it is easy to ignore that many of the measures to crank up the economy will end sooner or later, and a sizable portion of the population is expected to stay unemployed for quite a while. Some of the factors mentioned earlier that could specifically explain the healthy consumer electronics market will cease to exist: people will spend again more money on dining out, going to movie theaters, and will no longer have the time to tinker with any new electronic gear.

But, as I also stressed in our previous newsletter, not everything will go back to where it was and there will be winners and losers. Many consumers have gotten used to buying different things and buying them differently (i.e. online) and from different vendors.

It’s up these newly adopted vendors to continue to stay relevant to their new customers by offering the types of products through the type of methods and desired services that match the evolving needs of these new customers.

It’s up to the legacy vendors who have suffered most during the COVID-19 pandemic to win their old customers back – while hopefully having learned a thing or two as to why their customers chose these alternative solutions, and making informed decisions as to how they can earn their business back.

Source for camera sales numbers: The NPD Group, Inc., U.S. Weekly Retail Tracking Service, Detachable Lens Camera, Digital Lens Type: Digital SLR, Mirrorless Detachable Lens, 7 weeks ending May 23, 2020 vs. same weeks in 2019