The longer the COVID-19 crisis lurches forward, the more likely U.S. run specialty shops will be challenged to generate higher year-over-year monthly sales. Some 29 percent of run specialty survey respondents projected “up to flat” year-over-year sales in April, while 17.2 percent anticipated this month’s sales will decline 21 percent to 40 percent. Another 20.4 percent forecasted a 41 percent to 60 percent year-over-year revenue drop due to the impact of the coronavirus. The findings comes from a Running Industry Association (RIA) survey of more than 100 retailers in the channel.

“We sent the survey to every run specialty retailer in our database,” said Terry Schalow, RIA’s executive director. “Our goal was to provide the most accurate data possible, so it didn’t matter if the retailers were members or not. Our goal was to include everyone’s input.”

Meanwhile, 62.5 percent of the survey’s respondents said they can maintain wage support for furloughed employees for 1 to 3 months, with 51.1 percent reported having enough cash on hand for the same period.

“We are keenly aware that the channel is suffering, and there is a great deal of uncertainty about the future,” Schalow said. “We can’t predict where this will end, but what we can do is provide some clarity around the challenges we face.”

Asked about sales strategies being utilized to keep sales flowing, running shops cited online orders/ship from store (83.9 percent), taking advantage of vendor drop shipping (75.3 percent), home delivery (72 percent) and curbside pick-up (68.8 percent). Additionally, the survey shows that 29.2 percent of run specialty shop respondents are not currently using an e-commerce platform but “are exploring options” in that area.

The RIA intends to follow its late March survey with another in April to gather further insight on how business is trending and what marketing strategies are most effective in keeping businesses afloat.

“We’re all in this together, and we’ll come through it,” Schalow said.

Complete results from the COVID-19 Retail Survey have been added to the RIA COVID-19 Resource Guide (see link in our “COVID-19: Links to Industry Resources” story.)