This is the third column in a five-part Heard on the Street series on how the American economy might look once the Covid-19 pandemic is over.
The coronavirus pandemic has transformed the way Americans eat, shop and entertain themselves. In one manner or another, most of these consumer activities have moved into the home and online.
Now, with effective vaccines on the horizon, the most important question for investors is how much never goes back to the way it used to be. The answers will have major implications for swaths of the economy, but they aren’t likely to be straightforward. Each affected industry has its own nuances to consider.
In cases where consumers have merely adopted a workaround that is inferior to the real thing, activity should snap back strongly. Happy hours over Zoom, for instance, are no match for an actual night out. But in other cases consumers may find the new way of doing things superior, such as having groceries delivered instead of venturing into a supermarket.
For still other pursuits, like fitness and movies, in-person and at-home options have in fact been in competition for decades, with strong use cases for both. Note, for instance, that more than 1.2 billion domestic movie tickets were sold last year—about the same as five years before despite the growing onslaught of streaming services. And, according to box-office tracking service the Numbers, average ticket prices actually rose by 12% in that period.
