Activity after christmas and the new year will be different this year. Just this week then your Governor Andrew Cuomo defended his mandates. This Holiday Season is the problem, this is not a political issue, this is not a normal thanksgiving, keep your children home, close businesses, stay home, stay home, stay home. Gerry i think you got that message loud and clear, many businesses the next few weeks are usually crucial for the ability to thrive or survive, we spend a disproportionate amount of our income on this. Every year, but its coming at a time when the coronavirus maybe hitting the maximum spread and a few months before the widespread availability of vaccinations. Companies especially small firms that have been entered badly damage now face potentially exponential threat, we will take a detailed look on how the pandemic and the lockdown has affected key sectors of the economy and what future there might be when this is all over. Consumer spending accounts for more than two thirds of total Economic Activity in the u. S. And its been hit hard by the pandemic spending rebounded in the three months of september but more than 3 below where it was a year earlier. Consumer spending is that levels were was almost three years ago there have been big ships on entertainment, travel and hospitality has collapsed, money spent on traditional brickandmortar stores has declined sharply while online spending has increased dramatically. In the three months of september ecommerce retail spending in the u. S. Increased by 36 from a year earlier. This remarkable shift is captured well in the Financial Performance of companies that derive a large share from retail, look at amazon, the stock has doubled since the pandemic, started in march with so many businesses going bankrupt, what kind of an economy will we have when the pandemic is over. Will retailing ever return or will our entire Shopping Experience be largely digital. Well start this week to look at companies with a big high street presence out of handle the crisis this year, joining me now the ceo burns the norma barnes , before that he managed to back a longterm trend of decline for traditional booksellers. James, thank you for joining us. Barnes noble, when you took it over the last two years i had some challenges but you had seem to be making significant progress and then along came the pandemic, tell us how the pandemic in the last nine months have affected your traditional bookselling business. It is had a very tough time the stores, in the spring when they were closed and almost all states across the united states, we had sales pneumatically down but once we were allowed to reopen people came back to the stores and we have actually prospered in most parts of our business, book sales are tremendously good but some parts notably our cafe operation, most of them have been doing very badly, its been a mix of things that to your introductory piece and we have an advantage of an Online Presence, that is compensated for the weakness in the stores. Gerry tell us about that, has it more than compensated for the weakness in the stores, whats a balance of online versus traditional sales. I think its a situation and you will find that people could be reading much more so book sales are exceptionally strong both in stores and online, puzzles, games, educational toys, what does that do tremendously, thats practically never, other parts have an are doing very badly, ups and downs online doubled easily overall, tremendously strong during the lockdown and somewhat to her surprise, really coming on again over the past few weeks. As we come into the Holiday Season, extraordinary gains in the online sales but also quite strong in our stores, that for us is quite good. What about smaller bookstores before you took on the large roles at Big Companies i know you had a background in the independent bookselling business, what is the prospect for independent small booksellers in the postpandemic world. I think of the postpandemic the prospects are good because independent stores do that thing in modern retailing, they give you an experience in embedded within that community. But during the pandemic, right now it is tremendously tough and frankly unless theyve got the Balance Sheet and an independent business sense that means the savings to get them through this then its really terribly difficult, they dont have Online Presence and they rely on people coming into their stores which less people are doing, most will get through because of her modica entrepreneurial people when were out of the pandemic they will be back and they will prosper. Gerry the pandemic has accelerated and is it likely that we are going to revert to the prepandemic world which it was a mix of digital and traditional retailer, what is the future for traditional physical retailing. My in view, those retailers who provide experience, really positive experiential enjoyment on the part of the consumer, the shopper, they will prosper and put bookstores amongst that group, if youre brickandmortar, retailer animal and is not vertically uplifting experience, life is going to be really tough and i think itll be far fewer irrelevant in my general view, some retail will remain and prosper but much that it will disappear, i happen to think the booksellers will be on the side of that. Gerry were almost out of time, you are a victim of a cyber hackery recently, can you tell us a little bit about that and what extent was Customer Data compromised. No Customer Data compromised, we took a very conservative approach, we were notified that we had a bone ability and we closed our entire system down and out of an abundance of caution, we built it up and these happen enough that is very concerning and we were lucky, were up and running again and no breach of data think goodness. Gerry you are surrounded by books, thank you for joining us. Coming up the travel industry is an uptick in holiday travelers who are ignoring covid warnings, is this a blip or could we be seeing the start for a rebound. That is next. I feel like a hermit. We cant stop for some of us, our daily journey is a short one when you drive less, you pay less with pay per mile insurance from allstate youve never been in better hands allstate click or call for a quote today its time for theraflu hot liquid medicine. Powerful relief so you can restore and recover. Theraflu hot beats cold. Im not letting this hamper my lifestyle. Im negative for the third time this year, im going to see my family in chicago and im so excited to go. Excited but a little nervous. Gerry the economy has been hardhit by the pandemic and travel, the number of travelers passing through checkpoints collapsed in the spring and slowly recovering sense even to the highest number since the pandemic since last weekend the travel is less than half of what it was a year ago. Down to has been disastrous for airlines, hotels, cruise lines and others, what is the outlook once a pandemic is over and how is the travel business changing, the ceo of an teletravel, travel agency with a difference, he recruits people with little or no professional extremes to sell vacations and other travel opportunities from home, its a growing business that is attracted more people during the pandemic and james joins me now, thank you for joining me. Thank you so much. Your business model, how does it work, i dont think a lot of people will know about it. We created the idea from family and friends and we did it 30 years ago and we now have 60000 travel agents under contract around the world principally the u. S. , uk and mexico. Gerry you signed up a lot of people during the pandemic even though travel is down people are looking for opportunities. Peoples minds are open to working from home thanks to the sheer and i think everyone is reexamining their priorities and their options, we think we struck a chord. Gerry do you think this is a model for the future and the travel agencies that were disrupted initially by expedia in the travel business by expedia and others like that, is the new model of individuals working from home and is something going to take off . I do, if you ask our suppliers in the cruise lines, the hotels and resorts, they will tell you, this is where the action is that this model is outperforming the rest of the market especially during this year. Gerry as you look at travel has taken a huge hit over the last nine months, we are hoping the vaccines come along early next year, middle of next year, what you see are we going to return to normal, will people go crazy and travel everywhere or are they going to be more cautious . First of all we have lost 464 billion in the travel industry, 50 billion of that is tax revenue to the government but it is not as bad as some would have you believe, the reports are exaggerated, there are more people traveling this Holiday Season than we wouldve ever predicted and in fact were only slightly down over last year and from her own research, the research that im reading, the agreement not only will the market return but were looking at a travel boom, pentup demand and a slingshot return at some point in the first or Second Quarter next year, this is bolstered by all the news about the vaccine but other things too, cruise which is 50 of the market was completely taken out of the market this year, that is never happened before and there is a path to start cruising again. Gerry sorry to interrupt, do you think people are going to be cautious about getting on airplanes, even once the pandemic is over being in an enclosed environment with other people like that, is that going to hurt the travel business . I dont think its going to hurt, and some sense it becomes the new normal and then the next new normal after that until we climb back to something that feels a lot more normal, i certainly find more confidence in the idea that people are cleaning better, airlines, the pocket in the seat in front of you isnt going to be so grungy, there are positive things coming out of this. Gerry i think a lot of people will echo your words, my thanks, thank you very much. Coming up he cooks up a way how to help independent Pizza Restaurants survive during the pandemic. Research shows people remember commercials with nostalgia. So to help you remember that Liberty Mutual customizes your Home Insurance, heres one thatll really take you back. Wow whatd you get, ryan . 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Gerry a worrying trend that is accelerated during the pandemic is the decline of Small Businesses, Larger Companies have been able to adapt at the challenges of lockdowns, many have gained in the consumers have taken hom engine stayed hoe and taken advantage of online retailing, smaller businesses is not possible they lack the scale of facilities and distribution networks, they have been crushed by the giant, smaller restaurants during the pandemic there has been a particular challenge they have been forced to close at home delivery, the challenges they face permitting out of business completely, my next guest designs to help the Small Businesses, he is slice founder and ceo, his grandfather ran a pizza store when hes been close with the difficulties, he started slice pizza ten years ago to develop software to help restaurants compete, it is more than 14000 restaurants in the network, think youre dreaming. Thank you so much for having me, tell us if you would briefly what it does, what weve done weve created the Largest Community of Small Business pso restaurant and we empowered them with an online solution and allinone online solution to help transition from offline to digital so they can better compete with larger chains like dominos, papa johns, et cetera, in essence we have the large largest pizza chain. Gerry this is personal because we see the business is set up close. Absolutely, today we have over 30 family members that own Small Business Pizza Restaurants that are part of the community, comes from a Third Generation of Small Business owners in the pizza industry as well and as you mentioned getting back to the 70s, my grandfather owned a pizza shop in manhattan called charlies pizza on 77th and third avenue. Gerry tell us how youve grown, over 14000, what is it about what you offer that is leading to this growth. We break down our offering into two components, one with an all in turn solution for the Small Businesses to embrace and take advantage of the digital that the consumer has evolved to, in essence we empower them with a worldclass website, its enabled with an ecommerce solution, online ordering for the customer, a worldclass mobile app that is specialized in this category. The builder, customization, et cetera. Gerry you can give economies of scale that individual business would not be able to take advantage of. Exactly, thats a second bucket, in order for Small Businesses to have a chance at winning, theyve got to realize the same economy of scale that franchise models do, by uniting 14000 under the community we can relay some of those economies by scale to think data, buying power for pizza boxes amongst other items. Gerry how scalable is this, one of the things weve seen during the pandemic is the challenges of Small Businesses and many have been getting crushed by their larger competitors. How are you doing with pizzas and other restaurants too, how far could this go, how much could this change the equation for so many Small Businesses facing so much pressure. Weve seen a third hand we have a small handful on our platform that are processing more than half a Million Dollars a year digitally and what that does, the impact these businesses in a way that is incredibly positive and incremental to our business, it makes them so much more efficient and obviously the consumer expense has become ten times better. We know for sure firsthand that it works incredibly well, we just need to make sure that we continue to provide that solution in scale our Network Beyond the locations. Gerry thank you very much indeed, Everybody Needs pizza, definitely an essential business with or without the pandemic, thank you for joining us. Coming up paralyzed by pandemic, this Country Economic and civic liberties are being threatened. We cant afford t this is andy, my schwab financial consultant. Heres andy listening to my goals and making plans. This is us talking taxsmart investing, managing risk, and all the ways schwab can help me invest. This is andy reminding me how i can keep my investing costs low and that theres no fee to work with him. Heres me learning about schwabs satisfaction guarantee. Accountability, i like it. So, yeah. Andy and i made a good plan. Find your own andy at schwab. A modern approach to wealth management. Lexus has been celebrating driveway moments. Heres to one more, the lexus december to remember sales event. Lease the 2021 nx 300 for 349 a month for 36 months and well make your first months payment. 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Gerry sense of the coronavirus pinot make hit nine months ago we been focused primarily on the immediate challenges staying healthy, limiting the spread, treating the sick and all the while trying to keep the economy from falling apart. Its been encouraging news on vaccine in recent weeks it looks like those tough challenges will remain our primary focus, at least for the next few months. Stark events like these, pandemics, wars, major social changes have profound longterm effects that can transform the way our societies are organized. We need to address those longterm changes to. It is too early to tell how the pandemic will effect us but we can already see worrying longterm potential consequences. As we discussed already on the show the virus has accelerated big shifts in economic power from Small Companies to big businesses and from traditional retailing and spending to online and digital. While we may welcome the convenience that these changes bring we should also be alert to the dangers that the concentration of power can bring, especially the concentration of power in the hands of behemoths like the tech companies. Another worrying trend is the way in which progressive leaders in big states have used the opportunity of the pandemic to seize control of the way we conduct our lives. From lockdowns to controls and social gatherings to mask mandates. While there may be Good Public Health reasons for all these measures dont think they arent also intended to change the way we think about the role of government in our lives. The left thinks this isnt just how we should be behaving during a pandemic but they hope to use the experience of the last few months to embed the printable government knows best. Do what you are told and all will be fine. When this immediate crisis is over we need to be especially vigilant to make sure that we dont lose the economic and civic freedoms that built this country success. Thats it for us this week for the latest show updates follow me on twitter, facebook and instagram. I will be back next week with new indepth interviews on the wall street journal at large. Thank you for joini us and enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend. Jack welcome to a special additional barrons roundtable. This week were taking the long view looking at steps you can take to shore up your investment portfolio. Im jack otter. Coming up behavioral economist and Nobel Prize Winner doctor Richard Thaler on the common mistakes we make in managing our finances and how to avoid them. Our advice on how to construct an investment portfolio. But first, we begin with the top three things you should do now to manage your personal finances ahead of the new year. 2020 has been a tale owo
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