Indian River Consulting Group’s (IRCG) weekly distributor Pandemic Revenue Index (PRI) — launched in late March to provide the B2B distribution space with a snapshot of how distributor revenues are doing amid the COVID-19 pandemic — expectedly showed a second-straight considerable decline in participant sales for the week of March 30-April 3.
Following a 23.5 percent plummet for the week of March 23-27, the PRI showed that participating distributors saw sales fall another 13.5 percent last week.
While the latest PRI was technically an improvement in week-to-week sales, given the smaller decline, IRCG noted that respondent commentary indicated the uplift in sales was due to large back-orders in shipping, rather than an indication that the COVID-19 pandemic situation is improving for distributors.
“When the exceptional sales mentioned by participants are excluded, the sales dropoff would be very consistent to what we saw the prior week,” IRCG founder Mike Marks said.
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The chart below shows the percent change in sales in 2020 compared with the same week in 2019, helping to reveal how revenue declines may have driven by uncontrollable forces, such as the current COVID-19 global disruption.
Indian River Consulting Group
The sample size for the week of March 23-27 is eight distributors. IRCG said it expects the sample size will continue to increase weekly, and that distributors interested in participating should contact IRCG founder Mike Marks at [email protected].
Marks
“With the increase in “stay-at-home” orders and continued dramatic increased in unemployment, it will be very interesting to see what the next few weeks’ numbers look like,” Marks commented.
See IRCG’s distributor Pandemic Revenue Index chart updated for last week below:
