1. Liquor sales skyrocket
Americans may be prevented from consuming alcohol in bars and restaurants, but with liquor stores deemed essential businesses sales are up substantially. According to last week’s sales data of 48,000 liquor stores from Womply (CRM software provider) weekly sales were up in nearly every state.
New York state liquor sales increased 100% on March 10 and by the following Monday when bars and restaurants were closed YoY sales increased 340% according to the data from Womply.
2. Daily grocery sales reflect the initial stockpiling of food.
Sales at local grocers have inflected much more significantly than the large national chains data from Nielsen. The recent deceleration in the local grocers sales from Womply likely reflects a combination of shelves and freezers being full and grocery shelves being empty of items like toilet paper and meat.
3. Constellation off-premise sales jump
Constellation Brands said on March 23 that its off-premise sales increased more than 30% in the last four week period. On premise sales have largely dried up, but only represent ~17% of sales. Management has also said the unfortunate similarities in the name of Corona and the coronavirus have not impacted sales. The search interest in Google trends has begun to fade (chart below) suggesting consumers have less brand confusion. We do not think the Corona brand has been permanently impaired by the association, but if that is the risk we can certainly conduct consumer surveys over time.
