Amazon Expected to Thrive in Wake of Pandemic

Thursday, April 30, 2020 - 16:28 by Graham Miller

A study from Brand Finance suggests that some of the biggest retailers that offer safe shopping online will benefit the most from increased sales spurred on by the economic impact of the coronavirus, with Amazon likely to be the firm that gets the biggest boost.

In the past year, Amazon has managed to see the value of its brand rise by almost a fifth, with analysts now pegging it at $220 billion. This makes it more than twice as valuable as any other major retailer, and this state of affairs does not look set to change any time soon, especially with the disruption to the bricks and mortar retail market brought about by COVID-19 restrictions.

Indeed, the study comes to the unsurprising conclusion that any retailers which are reliant on their physical stores to stay afloat will suffer the most in 2020, while those that operate solely on the internet will instead be in a prime position to flourish this year.

Report spokesperson Richard Haigh said that Amazon was already a dominant force in the world of web-based retail and so would be unlikely to face significant setbacks due to coronavirus. In fact, it is thought that its brand will become even more valuable specifically because it is able to fulfil the retail needs of customers in ways that rivals cannot at this time.

There are still plenty of hurdles that Amazon and other major e-commerce brands need to overcome in order to ensure that they do not fall behind in the coming weeks and months. Issues with staff safety in warehousing, as well as the overloading of delivery services, are causing questions to be raised at the moment, and retailers of all sizes are having to take tough decisions this year.