April Showers Bring...

Shamelessly Borrowed from the Worldwide Info-Web

The April results (as such) are in -

Courtesy of the FH

Globally?  It was better than an 80% drop.  But what I find curious is the response from some of my better heeled colleagues in the 4th and 5th Estate now gasping, flabbergasted that now, suddenly, the shit is real!  I guess when you aren't jetting off here, there and everywhere and enjoying luxury junkets, you have a few moments to actually focus on something that isn't shiny.  

Now what my erstwhile BaselWorld "chums" are failing to take into account is that, in fact, the trend was already, well, trending downward before COVID-19.  Nothing like negative 80%, but not exactly rosy either.

Now let's unpack this a little bit further.  Once again for the folks in the cheap seats -
EXPORTS DO NOT EQUAL SALES. And believe it or don't, for once that is actually GOOD NEWS for the Swiss brands. That means that there will be (hopefully) less product bobbing around in the Grey Market with the rest of the flotsam.

Will some retailers be "done" for good?  Well, those who had not already embraced an e-commerce strategy might not be able to come back, at least not in the same manner that they had been.

Some smaller brands will possibly not be able to recover, and in fairness?  They might have been heading that way already.  The process just got sped up.

And for those of us in the press? Well, those of us not dependent upon the largesse of the brands will continue to roll so long as we remain interested. But here is the interesting part - advertising budgets had already been slashed pre COVID-19, and brands will likely hold onto as much cash (or credit) as they can for the rest of the year.  

One other curious thing I've been reading from some of the other outlets -
China is (already) showing signs of coming back! (i.e. people are out shopping). Which is swell, but not really a true metric of anything without 90 days of data. But more to the point?  Didn't we learn anything from the last 5 and half months about depending too much on any one market?  

Tempus Fugit