How Stay-In-Place Orders this Memorial Day Translated into Increased Beer Sales for the Inner-City Merchants

NEWARK, N.J., May 31, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- How Stay-In-Place Orders this Memorial Day Translated into Increased Beer Sales for the Inner-City Merchants

National Retail Solutions offers a first-hand look at store data with its state-of-the-art, point-of-sale network.

Memorial Day was historic within its own merits this year with much of the population still under stay-at-home orders amid the COVID-19 pandemic. On record, it's the second largest beer sales period in the United States after Labor Day Weekend.

Despite the temporary ordinances, adults found opportunities to enjoy "a cold one" sometime over the three-day weekend. And for those living in urban and inner-city neighborhoods where safe and accessible shopping is limited, it meant hitting up the nearest corner store or bodega for the Memorial Day beer-run.

National Retail Solutions (NRS) operates one of the largest and fastest growing point-of-sale networks for independent retailers and bodega owners nationwide. It monitored beer sales in the stores within COVID-restricted designated market areas including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Detroit and Philadelphia for the 2020 Memorial Day weekend period of May 22 – May 29.

In aggregate, beer sales for the Memorial Day 2020 weekend increased by 28.6 percent versus Memorial Day 2019 through these inner-city, neighborhood convenience stores. These bodegas overall experienced total dollar sales gains of 16.3 percent across all other categories. Outlets in California experienced the greatest beer dollar growth, up over 50 percent.

In addition to gathering valuable beer sales data, NRS was able to track the national holiday's top-selling beer brands. Modelo Especial enjoyed the greatest year-over-year net dollar growth, contributing to 32 percent of the category gains. Pacifico, Bud Light, Modelo Chelada and Michelob Ultra rounded out the top five growth brands.

While beer led all categories on year-over-year net dollar growth, other top growth drivers were other alcoholic beverages, mixers and tobacco products. Two stand-out growth categories were ice cream and frozen desserts with a 25 percent sales increase and games and toys with nearly a 100 percent increase, which likely is a consequence of the stay-at-home orders.

The top items purchased along with Beer over the weekend were Lottery Tickets, Coca-Cola, Marlboro and Newport Cigarettes, Red Bull, Poland Spring Water, Barcel Takis and Doritos.

"COVID-19 has strengthened the relationship and dependency between 100 million inner-city residents and their neighborhood market and this is a critical retail sector for marketers to support and measure," said Suzy Silliman, NRS Senior Vice President of Data Strategy and Sales.

NRS has the ability to gather sales data quickly and efficiently though the point-of-sale terminal-based platform. This system is in over 8,000 individual outlets and provides a robust portfolio of tools to help these retailers compete more effectively in the marketplace.

The inner-city mom and pop stores, bodegas/ethnic markets, smoke shops have previously gone unmeasured and are largely underdeveloped by consumer brands. NRS is providing unique services to consumer goods marketers in this space through data, advertising, and s-o-t-a technology.

About National Retail Solutions: A subsidiary of IDT Corporation, NRS was created to leverage relationships with both customers and merchants. Founded in 1990, IDT is a telecom pioneer in Prepaid and VoIP telephone technology.

SOURCE National Retail Solutions