Indian River Consulting Group's (IRCG) weekly Distributor Pandemic Revenue Index (PRI) showed modest improvement last week, but appears to have found new holding phase that's still in the negative.
The PRI for the work week of June 15-19 indicated an average year-over-year sales decline of 5.7 percent among its 10 distributors surveyed compared with the same week from a year earlier. That figure follows declines of 8.5 percent for the week of June 8-12 and 1.39 percent during June 1-5.
Though still far better than when the PRI sunk as low as 30.5 percent in early April and held in double-digit declines through Mid-May, last week was the third-straight in the negative after nudging above breakeven at +0.34 percent for the week of May 25-29.
"Now, we appear to be settling into a period of sales declines in the mid-single digits. Of course, the situation is relatively dynamic but let’s hope the worst is behind us," commented Mike Emerson, IRCG partner. "There remains a fair amount of sales volatility among the distributors participating in the index. This week, six of the 10 distributors saw improvements relative to last week. However, of the six, five were coming off weeks that were worse than the previous week. So, there is some see-sawing going on with good weeks followed by bad weeks."
The PRI was launched in late March to provide the B2B distribution space with a snapshot of how distributor revenues are doing amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you are interested having your distribution firm participate in the PRI, reach out to Emerson at [email protected].
The chart below shows the percent change in sales in 2020 compared with the same week in 2019.
