With tight restrictions in place during lockdown in April, much of construction was halted apart from essential projects. Many merchants closed their branches or remained partially open, with skeleton staff and click & collect or delivery service only, however the month of May indicated a positive upturn in merchants’ confidence and prospects…
During May, as Government started to encourage construction to restart, many merchants reopened branches while adhering to new official guidelines. May’s easing boosted merchants’ sales expectations and confidence.
The Pulse, by MRA Research, is a monthly tracking survey of merchants’ confidence and prospects. It usually takes place at the start of each month, but with COVID disrupting so much and causing many closures, we interviewed between the 19th and 28th May.
Because of the unusual circumstances, we added extra questions in April on the extent of sales activity to get a better picture of the market through the lockdown. These additional questions are in May’s survey too.
*** As PBM has always produced a ‘combined’ July/August edition, the May report of The Pulse can be downloaded in full directly from the MRA website. Please click here to view.
A detailed summary of the June report is featured in PBM’s July/August editon which is out in print and as a digital download from July 20th 2020.
