Online Shopping Behavior ‘Baked,’ Causing ‘Reset’ in Brick-and-Mortar, Says UPS

COVID-19-induced business closures and stay-at-home restrictions “disproportionately affected” small- and medium-size businesses, and UPS is seeing “a dramatic shift in consumer shopping behavior,” said CEO David Abney on a Q1 investor call Tuesday. “By late March, residential deliveries approached nearly 70% of our volume and drove increased delivery costs.” Business-to-consumer e-commerce traffic “spiked early” in the pandemic, resulting in a 15% increase in “total average daily stops,” by the end of the quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Brian Newman. The “brick-and-mortar world has had a reset” toward online sales that likely will last post-pandemic, said Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer Scott Price. “What that reset will mean into the long term is not yet clear until we emerge into recovery,” he said. “But I think that there is now a behavior that is baked.”