There’s two kind of New Englanders: Ones east of the Connecticut River who were nailed Monday night into Wednesday morning by Storm Juno, and ones west of the Connecticut River who didn’t get hit, and are stuck with an endless supply of bread and milk.
But Storm Juno did wreak havoc on the ecommerce ecosystem. Analyzing 5 billion visits to 400 large U.S. online retailers, Adobe estimates that the storm cost online retailers $35 million Tuesday due to power outages, over-run cellular networks and general prep for the storm.
While online shopping patterns in New York City (which, as we know, is not a part on New England, but was affected by the storm) remained normal, the Northeast was impacted the most. Additional findings include:
- During the first half of yesterday, online sales growth fell to half of expected sales (5% compared to the average of 10% over the past 10 days)
SOURCE: Adobe (click to enlarge) - Online web searches decline during major storms
- Lower temperatures lead to lower online sales, as weather conditions can affect website sales by 10-15% (with snow serving as the greatest factor in reducing sales)
While not packing the wallop that forecasters had been predicting, Multichannel Merchanr Senior Editor Mike O’Brien reported Tuesday that Juno was bad enough to put a serious crimp in the shipping operations of major carriers in the Northeast.
UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service all reported service delays and shutdowns as the storm continued to move through the region today.