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Frankenstorm

The meteorological and economic aftermath of Hurricane Sandy Hitting the US eastern seaboard around Halloween, the hybrid storm was most certainly a monster bearing tricks. The economic damage of its impact is estimated to be around $50BN, that experts warn could knock a 1/2 a percentage point off the US economic growth this quarter. $20BN of this loss is attributed to stalled business, cancelled meals, flights, shopping and betting, and with most US retailers having 10 percent of their physical store base in the path of Sandy, purchases became all about need, creating a surge in DIY home products and food stocks, but causing a hit to fashion and luxury retail.

E-commerce retailers meanwhile seized the chance to entice discretionary spending online. “The bottom line is that some people had no electricity or phones so they obviously did not shop, some had mobile only and were bored so they shopped a little and some had both and were locked in their apartment and bored and they shopped a lot,” Gilt Groupe CEO Kevin Ryan. But with power in warehouses being knocked out and some NY data centres being affected too due to massive flooding also causing power outages, connectivity, fulfilment and shipping have been issues in the Tri-state area. Amazon.com issued a pre-hurricane warning to its merchants anticipating this and eBay sent emails suggesting that affected subscribers put their pages in ‘vacation’ mode to cover the period. And while some e-commerce retailers received negative press for running insensitive promotions implying ‘it’s never too stormy to shop online,’ others like eBay and Paypal started their own disaster relief campaigns, allowing users to pledge a donation to go towards the relief efforts.

Halloween spending itself was expected to generate upwards of $8 billion in spending coast-to-coast, so the trick now will be in waiting to see if postponed Tri–state celebrations like the major New York Greenwich Village Halloween Parade can help go some way to help recoup that ‘treat.’

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Kathy Heslop .