State of the industry
COVID-19 is impacting our industry. Bookings will be back, better than ever, in future. But in the short term it will be hard. One thing we can do to help is share our data with you, so we can see what the impacts are and make decisions based on facts. Here’s a first look at the numbers and some things we can do to prepare.
At Timely we’ve turned our attention to the ways we can help during this time. I don’t mean just reassuring words of advice you’ve already heard; we want to look back at 2020 and know that we made a real difference. My team has been working on making it easier for you to do things when there are physical distance barriers.
One way we want to help is by sharing the insights that we’re seeing across over 12,500 businesses. Of course, every business is different and we don’t want to cause unnecessary alarm. We hope that sharing the data will help the industry prepare to make decisions based on facts and trends.
Here are our insights, last updated 15 May.
The impact of COVID-19 was seen abruptly in booking data from mid-March. Booking numbers are fairly steady until March 11 and then we saw a downturn in bookings being made, this mirrors what we would expect given the regulations for physical distancing that have been recommended or regulated. Since the more strict shutdowns have been enforced in our key markets (AU, GB, NZ, US), the declines have become more severe, this is reflected in the data below.
Regional sales data
This set of graphs looks at Sales data by country. This includes both service and product sales. With the timing of government restrictions and varying definitions of ‘essential services’ for each region the downturn varies. Australia has seen a spike in payments before lockdowns take effect and we may see payments continue as while hair salons are included as essential services. The lockdown impact on NZ and UK service businesses is clear.
Sales data in Timely / 15 May
Bookings created in Timely / 15 May
Over the coming weeks and months, my team will continue to learn and assess the data trends and feed what we can to the industry as quickly as possible. My hope is that this helps people make more fact & data-based decisions. As always, we’ll respect data privacy every step of the way. If you have any feedback or ideas, I would love to hear them.
We’ve also launched a COVID-19 resource site which will have the best and latest information we can gather for you in one place. It has things you can do using Timely that can help as well as guidance on relief options.
Take care,
Ryan
