April 28, 2009
Swine Flu to Hit Retail
There’s
little doubt that the outbreak of swine flu is going to have an effect
on retailing in the U.S. Just how big an effect is anyone’s guess.
Consider
the average store employee’s exposure to people (and their germs) on the
job and it’s a pretty good bet that some will find themselves missing workdays.
There’s
also likely to be a beneficial business aspect to the influenza outbreak
as consumer demand for anti-viral prescription medicines, as well as personal
hygiene items including face
masks, disposable gloves, soaps/sanitizers and household cleaners grows.
CVS,
which has a store near the St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens, where
20 have been diagnosed with the swine flu, has "seen a marked increase
in prescriptions for Tamiflu in the New York area," according to an interview
that company spokesperson Michael DeAngelis gave
to Bloomberg News.
Both
CVS and rival Walgreens are coordinating their response with their respective
in-store health clinic providers.
Another
potential consequence of a swine flu pandemic is a loss of tourist shoppers
this summer. Andorra Vassiliou, the European Union’s health commissioner, said
people "should avoid traveling to Mexico or the USA unless it is very
urgent for them."
U.S. government representatives
including the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Dr. Richard Besser, were recommending that people not overreact until
there is a clearer picture of the situation.
As of this report, the
World Health Organization had confirmed 149 deaths in Mexico but cases
of the disease have not been as severe in the U.S. where only one of 40
stricken with the flu has needed to be hospitalized.
Discussion Questions:
What are your thoughts on the swine flu outbreak and its potential effect
on U.S. retailers? What can stores/websites be doing now to help consumers
(and themselves) as this situation unfolds?
- World
closer to swine flu pandemic – Reuters - Swine Flu Prompts
CVS, Walgreen to Ready for Demand – Bloomberg News - WHO
raises pandemic alert level; more swine flu cases feared – CNN - Drug and
vaccine makers on standby over swine flu – Reuters - Key Facts about Swine
Influenza (Swine Flu) – Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention
BrainTrust
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
Poll
Stock up on N95 masks and make sure any products associated with swine flu are well maintained and easily accessible. What else is there to do? Customers are freaked out as it is. Might as well make it a little easier for them at the retail level.
As the swine flu spreads retailers should advertise products that will ease sufferers’ misery. They should help people cope with their concerns about how to protect themselves from getting the flu by providing accurate, selling-free information. They should not try to whip up growing consumer concern, thereby helping to create hysteria. That doesn’t benefit anyone.
If I were a retailer, I would set up hand sanitizing stations and provide the product. I would also require my cart guys to disinfect the carts every time they bring one into the store. And, I would advertise that I am doing so. Get ahead and show/tell shoppers you care enough about their overall health to invest in them coming in and feeling safer.
The swine flu right now needs to be treated at the very least, as a “news” outbreak. What this means to retailers, in the immediate sense is three-fold:
Preparation internally:
– Meet now to discuss your thoughts and plans for employees, customers, and all operations and systems, for the event that swine flu becomes a more prevalent issue where you and your stores are located. In other words, have a plan.
Marketing and Sales:
Consumers will be obsessed with cleanliness and germs. Order the right amount of product(s) associated with personal size and family size sanitation; i.e., soaps, waterless hand sanitizers, etc.
Pharmaceutical:
– If you have drug stores and pharmacies, be sure your Rx personnel are prepared for questions, supply, and answers to the public.
The hysteria surrounding this is amazing. What even worse could possibly kill us all–details tonight on FOX. My advice to clients who want to succeed: I wouldn’t buy in to any of it unless I was a doctor looking to pick up business. “Worried you too could be sick? We’re open late to help you in this time of crisis.”
Germs aren’t the only thing customers will spread to cashiers. The palpable panic felt by some customers stocking up on sanitizers, masks, etc. can be contagious to the cashiers, as well. We need to remember to take care of our staff. They are the face of our companies and need facts and reassurance (and, yes, bottles of hand sanitizer.)
No one wants to catch it! And when fear is in fashion the greatest terror is most frequently not in the bang, but in the anticipation of it. The more the media and government talk about swine flu the greater the negative impact it will have on food sales in stores and restaurants, regardless of statistics–good or bad. Folks will turn to protective purchases: face masks, flu medicines and germ-killing items. That will direct more people toward drug stores and drug departments but still, total sales will be affected.
What an odd question.
Here I thought you were going to ask about mitigating the impact and creating a safe environment for consumers!
Perhaps that is the best way retailers can benefit. To build their brands by demonstrating they are part of the community. That would include:
1) Free hand sanitizers
2) Reduced price (i.e. zero margin) for Tamiflu
3) If it comes to it…low-priced or free face masks.
One never wants to profit directly from a PANDEMIC.
Did any retailers respond to the S.A.R.S. Outbreak of 2003 with a major overhaul in their inventory of communicable disease prevention products? Were any of those preparations and strategies anything more than a drain of morale and business resources?
My grandmother’s wisdom still holds. Encourage people to wash their hands, sanitation stations are always prudent. Don’t allow sick employees to “gut it out” coming to work sick. And don’t reflexively react to everything the media and politicians hysterically repeat on a 24/7 news cycle.
If it does explode into the ravaging destruction of humanity like the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, no amount of preparations that we could cover in this discussion would save your retail business.
I like all of the thoughts above and would add that I would like to see a mall host a wellness event and include speakers (doctors) on health issues. Lets use this opportunity for malls to be relevant to communities in a time of crisis.
Attempts to profiteer on the latest swine flu scare are certainly bad for one’s karma, if not bad for business. On the other hand, visible and practical cleanliness practices in stores (with simple, clear explanations of how they help protect shoppers) are a good idea.
In communities that have seen flu cases, I’d go so far as to suggest an attendant (gloved) at the front door might hand a sanitizing wipe to each entering shopper for use on their hands and cart handles. “We care about your good health. Won’t you help us protect each other from the flu?”
Also, just a thought: Has anyone developed a practical system for sanitizing (not laundering!) currency?
Retail will increase as more people act on their fears, founded or not. The key here is how retailers respond to this, and calmly reflect their focus and position in their stores and with their customers. This is a good thing for demand in the short term, and as long as the USA manages this like previous outbreaks, we will benefit from the increased spending.
No one has mentioned that if this turns out to be like 1918, people may not even be patronizing retailers, or going out in public, at all. In that pandemic, the virus first mutated from bird-to-human to human-to-human, and then it further evolved in such a way that there was no way to treat it. Getting it often meant death within 24-48 hours. Medical science has gotten better since then, but it so far hasn’t discovered a way to stop viruses from evolving. In 1918, the only solution to avoid getting ill was to stay at home, and most people did.
My company employs H2B workers. A customer had called one of our locations on Saturday to ask if our workers had been screened for swine flu.
I am concerned that swine flu may become an excuse for racist behavior. The caller did not ask if any of our college age employees or cashiers had gone to Mexico for spring break.
Every year we have to deal with all kinds of flu anyway and the economy keeps on rolling. I read that the US had 36,000 people die last year from the flu. Remember when everyone was afraid of catching AIDS? Eventually that made it to the back page as will the flu. Retailers will need to be cautious so as not to look foolish by overreacting.
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Stock up on N95 masks and make sure any products associated with swine flu are well maintained and easily accessible. What else is there to do? Customers are freaked out as it is. Might as well make it a little easier for them at the retail level.
As the swine flu spreads retailers should advertise products that will ease sufferers’ misery. They should help people cope with their concerns about how to protect themselves from getting the flu by providing accurate, selling-free information. They should not try to whip up growing consumer concern, thereby helping to create hysteria. That doesn’t benefit anyone.
If I were a retailer, I would set up hand sanitizing stations and provide the product. I would also require my cart guys to disinfect the carts every time they bring one into the store. And, I would advertise that I am doing so. Get ahead and show/tell shoppers you care enough about their overall health to invest in them coming in and feeling safer.
The swine flu right now needs to be treated at the very least, as a “news” outbreak. What this means to retailers, in the immediate sense is three-fold:
Preparation internally:
– Meet now to discuss your thoughts and plans for employees, customers, and all operations and systems, for the event that swine flu becomes a more prevalent issue where you and your stores are located. In other words, have a plan.
Marketing and Sales:
Consumers will be obsessed with cleanliness and germs. Order the right amount of product(s) associated with personal size and family size sanitation; i.e., soaps, waterless hand sanitizers, etc.
Pharmaceutical:
– If you have drug stores and pharmacies, be sure your Rx personnel are prepared for questions, supply, and answers to the public.
The hysteria surrounding this is amazing. What even worse could possibly kill us all–details tonight on FOX. My advice to clients who want to succeed: I wouldn’t buy in to any of it unless I was a doctor looking to pick up business. “Worried you too could be sick? We’re open late to help you in this time of crisis.”
Germs aren’t the only thing customers will spread to cashiers. The palpable panic felt by some customers stocking up on sanitizers, masks, etc. can be contagious to the cashiers, as well. We need to remember to take care of our staff. They are the face of our companies and need facts and reassurance (and, yes, bottles of hand sanitizer.)
No one wants to catch it! And when fear is in fashion the greatest terror is most frequently not in the bang, but in the anticipation of it. The more the media and government talk about swine flu the greater the negative impact it will have on food sales in stores and restaurants, regardless of statistics–good or bad. Folks will turn to protective purchases: face masks, flu medicines and germ-killing items. That will direct more people toward drug stores and drug departments but still, total sales will be affected.
What an odd question.
Here I thought you were going to ask about mitigating the impact and creating a safe environment for consumers!
Perhaps that is the best way retailers can benefit. To build their brands by demonstrating they are part of the community. That would include:
1) Free hand sanitizers
2) Reduced price (i.e. zero margin) for Tamiflu
3) If it comes to it…low-priced or free face masks.
One never wants to profit directly from a PANDEMIC.
Did any retailers respond to the S.A.R.S. Outbreak of 2003 with a major overhaul in their inventory of communicable disease prevention products? Were any of those preparations and strategies anything more than a drain of morale and business resources?
My grandmother’s wisdom still holds. Encourage people to wash their hands, sanitation stations are always prudent. Don’t allow sick employees to “gut it out” coming to work sick. And don’t reflexively react to everything the media and politicians hysterically repeat on a 24/7 news cycle.
If it does explode into the ravaging destruction of humanity like the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, no amount of preparations that we could cover in this discussion would save your retail business.
I like all of the thoughts above and would add that I would like to see a mall host a wellness event and include speakers (doctors) on health issues. Lets use this opportunity for malls to be relevant to communities in a time of crisis.
Attempts to profiteer on the latest swine flu scare are certainly bad for one’s karma, if not bad for business. On the other hand, visible and practical cleanliness practices in stores (with simple, clear explanations of how they help protect shoppers) are a good idea.
In communities that have seen flu cases, I’d go so far as to suggest an attendant (gloved) at the front door might hand a sanitizing wipe to each entering shopper for use on their hands and cart handles. “We care about your good health. Won’t you help us protect each other from the flu?”
Also, just a thought: Has anyone developed a practical system for sanitizing (not laundering!) currency?
Retail will increase as more people act on their fears, founded or not. The key here is how retailers respond to this, and calmly reflect their focus and position in their stores and with their customers. This is a good thing for demand in the short term, and as long as the USA manages this like previous outbreaks, we will benefit from the increased spending.
No one has mentioned that if this turns out to be like 1918, people may not even be patronizing retailers, or going out in public, at all. In that pandemic, the virus first mutated from bird-to-human to human-to-human, and then it further evolved in such a way that there was no way to treat it. Getting it often meant death within 24-48 hours. Medical science has gotten better since then, but it so far hasn’t discovered a way to stop viruses from evolving. In 1918, the only solution to avoid getting ill was to stay at home, and most people did.
My company employs H2B workers. A customer had called one of our locations on Saturday to ask if our workers had been screened for swine flu.
I am concerned that swine flu may become an excuse for racist behavior. The caller did not ask if any of our college age employees or cashiers had gone to Mexico for spring break.
Every year we have to deal with all kinds of flu anyway and the economy keeps on rolling. I read that the US had 36,000 people die last year from the flu. Remember when everyone was afraid of catching AIDS? Eventually that made it to the back page as will the flu. Retailers will need to be cautious so as not to look foolish by overreacting.