By Business & Finance 
Pictured: Alan Coleman, CEO of Wolfgang Digital
Wolfgang Digital have analysed over 57 million website sessions and over €213 million euro in online revenue over the past 13 weeks (Mon-Sun), to compile a weekly report covering the previous week’s movements in the online economy during the Covid19 crisis.
In this week’s report, Wolfgang Digital has the opportunity to take a month on month view on the online economy using February as the base and monitoring how consumer spend moved in March and April. They also examine the Google and Amazon quarterly reports. Here are the monthly figures:
Retail
April’s online retail revenue was almost treble that of pre-covid levels.
With e-commerce estimated to be 16% of overall retail, multichannel retailers have still lost more than half of their business. March and April saw online retail traffic climb 8% and 60% respectively.
The movements in online revenue have been more pronounced, rising 109% in March and then up 187% in April from February’s base.
Average revenue per click has increased by a momentous 80% for online retailers from February to April. This combined with falling cost per clicks has widened online profit margins for retailers. Scant reward to multi-channel retailers given the overall loss of business.
Travel
April’s Travel revenue figure was 3% of pre-covid levels. The travel industry is in a covid induced coma. Traffic reduced by 34% in March and 76% in April on pre-corona levels. Revenue fell 68% in March and down to 97% in April.
Outside of the Wolfgang dataset, last week the internet giants released their figures for Q1 2020.
Battle of the Internet Giants: Who’s really running the show?
Last week the Internet giants released their Q1 2020 reports. There was a collective omerta over the actual changes in spending in March as the Corona Crisis struck home, a clearer view of that will emerge in July. However, a number of details illustrated the increasing hegemony of the Tech Giants.
Facebook now has 2.99 BILLION monthly users of their family of apps. Up 100 million over the quarter.
World Population by continent.
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Asia 4.6 billion
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Facebook Family: 2.99 billion
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Africa 1.3 billion
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Americas 800 million
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Europe 750 million
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Oceania 42 million
Google came closest of all to revealing the extent of the corona impact on their business. The big G reported increased search activity in March, however the searches were less commercial in nature. They report a “mid teens reduction” in search ad spend year on year for the month of March, although they finished up 13% for Q1. Google have never reported a decline in quarterly revenue year on year. All eyes on July.
Twitter reported its largest ever leap in daily users to 166 million. Twitter is often derided for it’s comparatively small user base. If Twitter was a country they would be the 8th largest country in the world. Sitting in between Nigeria and Bangladesh.
Hats off to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for donating more than one quarter of his personal wealth, $1 billion dollars to charity prioritising Covid 19 relief efforts.
Not do be outdone, Jeff “Alpha Dog” Bezos has warned shareholders they may not like it, but he will spend ALL $4 BILLION OF AMAZONS Q2 EARNINGS, on corona proofing his supply chain. Buying PPE, developing Amazon corona testing for his workers and more.
Let me give you some context here. According to Wikipedia The World Health Organisation had an annual budget of $4 billion in 2018. Let me give you some further context. This is Jeff’s second biggest bet yet. Only Wholefoods was a larger investment for Amazon.
Now let me ask you a question, after Jeff has secured his supply chain do you think Amazon Prime members will get preferential access to ppe and covid testing kits?
Jeff is aiming a $4 billion dollar boulder at two birds. Amazon sees healthcare as a major long term opportunity for them. The health and safety of their workers has become an immediate PR problem for them. In one gargantuan move, Jeff is seeking to create the world’s safest warehouse and distribution chain and in doing so build the capability to become one of the world’s leading PPE and Covid Testing providers.
Jack has put up $1 billion or 25% of his personal wealth into the coronavirus cause. Jeff has put up $4 billion 2% of Amazon’s balance sheet to make his workers safe from the Coronavirus.
We could spend days debating which is the larger contribution, and which is the more valuable contribution.However one thing is indisputable. The hegemony of the internet giants is more real now, than ever before.
Social media platforms now enjoy the populations of countries and continents. And Two Tech Billionaires, Jack and Jeff combined, have spent an equivalent amount to the Word Health Organisation in the fight against coronavirus.
About the data
The dataset is dynamic, after we publish figures Google Analytics may continue to attribute revenue to previous weeks. In addition we might add and we might lose participants over time. This may lead to slight variances in the figures as time passes.
Please link to the full report on Wolfgang Digital’s website here.
