Speaker 1: It's Thursday, March eleven. I'm Oscar Mrrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: Many businesses thrived because of the shifts and spending during
Speaker 1: lockdowns now looking forward to an economy that will hopefully
Speaker 1: be getting back to normal soon. These companies are phasing
Speaker 1: questions about if they can keep up. Will people continue
Speaker 1: to order from door dash or go back to restaurants,
Speaker 1: Will the home improvement sector continue to grow, or are
Speaker 1: people going on vacations. Paul Zobro, reporter at the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Paul.
Speaker 1: You know we're all looking forward to getting back to
Speaker 1: normal as these vaccines can continue to roll out. We've
Speaker 1: gotten some good instructions from the CDC. Fully vaccinated people
Speaker 1: can start hanging out without masks and without having a
Speaker 1: social distance. So so we're on our way back and
Speaker 1: checking in on the business world. The pandemic the big
Speaker 1: disruptor that it has been. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: businesses that were thriving throughout the pandemic, food delivery apps,
Speaker 1: door dash, things like that, home improvement stores because everybody
Speaker 1: was at home, and what else did you have to do,
Speaker 1: but to fix up your house, things like that. But
Speaker 1: moving into this next phase, you know, some of these
Speaker 1: businesses now are confronting a lot of questions. Can they
Speaker 1: keep up the growth that they've done. Can they keep
Speaker 1: their businesses going as people's attentions are going to be split,
Speaker 1: you know, more restaurant dining, a lot of other things
Speaker 1: that pent up spending demand. Basically, So Paul tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about what these businesses are looking at.
Speaker 1: So I think the start off, I just want to
Speaker 1: be clear that I think every business and every person
Speaker 1: wants the world to return to some sense of normalcy
Speaker 1: from what we had before the pandemic. That being said,
Speaker 1: some businesses will confront some challenges to their financials as
Speaker 1: the world returns to their sense of normalcy. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are the companies just had really big games during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. You mentioned door Dash home depots. While there
Speaker 1: was a lot of stores closed, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of winners that came out of the retail space, home
Speaker 1: improvement space, electronics companies like Best Guy who just people
Speaker 1: bought up laptops for their home offices or homeschooling, bigger
Speaker 1: TVs to watch their Netflix people cooked at home a lot.
Speaker 1: So there was this huge sudden shift in spending and
Speaker 1: habits that happened when the world locked down. I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, just about a year ago, and there's probably
Speaker 1: gonna be just just as big of an unprecedented and
Speaker 1: unknown sort of shift. How much we get back to
Speaker 1: normalcy or is there some accelerated shift into into new
Speaker 1: habits once things kind of look a little bit normal
Speaker 1: in this world, And none of that's happening anytime soon.
Speaker 1: But like you said, there does seem to be light
Speaker 1: at the end of the tunnel with what vaccine is
Speaker 1: rolling out, some capacity restrictions being lifted, more schools and sessions.
Speaker 1: So companies are going to have to confront that new
Speaker 1: reality sooner as in later. Yeah, and it's not all
Speaker 1: bad news. It's not like the business for these companies
Speaker 1: that is going to just drop off out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: But the growth might not be as big as they
Speaker 1: experienced this past year. But that's important, you know, matters
Speaker 1: into the structure of their business and how they move forward.
Speaker 1: Do they need to cut back on employees, do they
Speaker 1: need to get more employees? These are all kind of
Speaker 1: the questions that they're going to have to grapple with
Speaker 1: as growth might not be as fast as as they
Speaker 1: experienced already. That's true. I mean some companies at astronomical growth.
Speaker 1: I mean DoorDash just you know, their order levels nearly
Speaker 1: you know, I think tripled in the in the fourth
Speaker 1: quarter last year. So they're one of the clear beneficiaries.
Speaker 1: And it kind of looks like they're they're gonna be
Speaker 1: one of the clear I don't want to say losers,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to see them benefiting as more people
Speaker 1: go out restaurants and you know, order in less often.
Speaker 1: But I think one kind of still relying to this
Speaker 1: sort of quote unquote problem, is that these companies did
Speaker 1: have big growth and as a result that they had
Speaker 1: a lot of customers who made them may not have
Speaker 1: been familiar with their platform. So one of the challenges
Speaker 1: to see if there's anything they can do to hold
Speaker 1: onto that business that they had. At Sea filled a
Speaker 1: lot of face masks and home decor over the during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. And while you might not buy as many
Speaker 1: face masks more, you might you know, now you haven't
Speaker 1: at the account and you you may know a little
Speaker 1: bit better and you kind of know what what you
Speaker 1: can get from it, and that's the company that hopes
Speaker 1: that they can grow fast in the broader e commerce space.
Speaker 1: Is kind of helped by the fact that a lot
Speaker 1: more new people started shopping on etc. Over the past here.
Speaker 1: Same thing with you know, home people modes. They have
Speaker 1: a lot of initiatives to make sure that people know
Speaker 1: of new ways that they can upgrade their homes and
Speaker 1: work with their contractors to do all that. So it's
Speaker 1: just another thing that these companies are are going to
Speaker 1: have to work on as we get into this phase,
Speaker 1: the phase of the recovery. And one of the interesting
Speaker 1: companies and all of this is Zoom. Obviously people were
Speaker 1: holding meetings, family gatherings over Zoom. I mean, they really
Speaker 1: took off throughout the pandemic. And as things open up
Speaker 1: people start going back to work, what is their place
Speaker 1: going to be in this space now? You know, they
Speaker 1: had a huge rise and growth and obviously they want
Speaker 1: to continue that. So they're definitely going to have to adapt.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a lot of people still working from
Speaker 1: home and remotely. A lot of that might stick around,
Speaker 1: but for them, maybe the usage for people just and
Speaker 1: be as great. So they really have an interesting place
Speaker 1: in all this they do. But even if you think
Speaker 1: about what the office will look like over the next
Speaker 1: couple of years, we hear very few companies talking about
Speaker 1: everybody back in the office at the same time anytime soon.
Speaker 1: And I can't even imagine that even within an office
Speaker 1: that they'll be crowding into conference rooms for the big meetings.
Speaker 1: People very well, well they said at their desks or
Speaker 1: just had a couple of people in the office and
Speaker 1: a couple of people at home, you know, meeting together
Speaker 1: like that. So one thing I think that these companies
Speaker 1: have working in their advantage is that they know that
Speaker 1: this is coming. Whereas when the pandemic happened, nobody really
Speaker 1: knew that that was that was on the horizon, so
Speaker 1: everybody was really rushing to make sure they know to
Speaker 1: figure out, you know, what we're gonna do here, Whereas
Speaker 1: with the pandemic, you know, they at least have some
Speaker 1: time to prepare to say, we don't think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be around forever. Let's figure out and brain stormways to
Speaker 1: find out what our life is going to be like
Speaker 1: in our company, is going to be like um in
Speaker 1: this you know, new normal, And they can find a
Speaker 1: way to integrate into that. I mean, Zoom is talking
Speaker 1: about like totally other events and and other other services.
Speaker 1: So so I think're gonna go away, but you may
Speaker 1: do viewers and calls. Well, we already had to do
Speaker 1: one big transition. We're looking ahead to this other transition
Speaker 1: point and it's you know, for these businesses to adapt
Speaker 1: and kind of get in on that. So we'll see
Speaker 1: how all of that plays out. Paul Zo bro reporter
Speaker 1: at the Wall Street Journal, Thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us, no problem, thanks for having me. I'm Oscar
Speaker 1: Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1: For today's big news stories, you can check me out
Speaker 1: on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday to Friday. So
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