Stay-at-home orders, remote work, and traversing through the phases of re-opening during the age of COVID-19 has led many Americans to spend time at home in 2020. Yet, COVID has also sparked reinvestment into old passions or the discoveries of new ones to keep us happy while we're practicing social distancing. As a result, a 2020 home renovation and gardening boom has swept the globe. Furthermore, gardening and building material retail sales flourished this past spring.
To better capture COVID-19's effect on different retail sectors, including gardening retail, the Breck's team analyzed the monthly sales revenue of 35 different retail sectors using the U.S. Census Monthly Retail Trade Report. We captured sales revenue from March through May 2019 and compared it against the sales revenue from March through May 2020 to find out which retail sectors had the largest spikes and drops due to the quarantine.
The Rise & Fall of Retail Sales During COVID-19
First, we looked at the overall positive and negative impacts on general retail industries in the wake of COVID-19. As can be expected, a substantial number of retail industries suffered from the economic hit caused by the global pandemic, with some industries seeing drops in revenue as large as 67%.
The gardening industry saw an incredibly healthy spike in revenue, despite COVID-19. The above graph shows that sales revenue for the building material and garden retail sector actually increased by 8.6% between Spring 2019 and Spring 2020. Beer, wine, and liquor stores increased by 13.7% year over year, while grocery stores increased by 18.5%. E-commerce has had the biggest growth spike, increasing by 20.4% year over year.
The Rise in Gardening Retail During COVID-19
Gardening retail has seen an upward trend in the year on year growth rate of average sales revenue over the past couple of years, moving from a 4.62% increase in revenue in 2018 all the way to a 8.79% increase in revenue this year in 2020. The upwards-trending industry growth suggests a growing interest in gardening over the past years. The large growth spike between 2019 and 2020 specifically shows the positive impact that this recent gardening boom has had on this sector.
Since we saw this impressive spike in revenue growth in the gardening industry, we wanted to get a clearer look at the month by month breakdown of similarly well-faring retail sectors during COVID-19. To do so, we compared increases in gardening retail sales to those of e-commerce retailers and grocery stores from 2019 to 2020.
Grocery store sales saw the largest spike, 26.96% in March, perhaps indicative of nationwide spending out of panic due to food shortages. Though it is interesting to note that, as reported by NPR, food shortages across the country did lead many people to start cultivating produce at home. E-commerce saw the largest year on year increase in May, due to socially-distanced shopping by Americans online.
Most notably, clothing and accessories stores saw huge dips in revenue, over 50% throughout the entire analyzed period, due to COVID-19. While some Americans have shifted their clothing purchases from in-store to online, it's quite possible that the cancellation of social events and the closing of all in-store fitting rooms meant that not as many were adding to their wardrobes.
It looks like the sharpest decreases in sales revenue happened in April, with even gas stations seeing over 30% drops from the previous year. If there's one thing we can take solace in, it's that drops in gas stations sales hopefully can be attributed to Americans staying at home and staying safe during the pandemic.
Wrap Up
Overall, from the data we saw, gardening retail fared uniquely well during COVID-19. Hopefully, an increase in gardening sales allowed for people to get outside and create something beautiful during otherwise uncertain times. If you love the therapeutic nature of gardening and are looking to keep up the gardening momentum by planting spring flowers, like hyacinth, tulips, or daffodils, then check out our spring bulbs page where you can filter by zone, color, or bloom time!