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Bloomberg
Early looks from Starbucks and Costco Wholesale into their coronavirus-era businesses suggest that US consumers may not be ready to turn back to their old spending ways as soon as governments give the all-clear sign.
Starbucks sales cratered at the end of March. Its experience in China, which is now emerging from forced social distancing, showed that customers were hesitant to return at first. The Seattle-based chain said that while it had seen seven straight weeks of same-store sales improvement in China, that measure was still 42% below what it was a year earlier.
Costco, meanwhile, posted double-digit gains in March, though these were not as much as expected. While restrictions on customer traffic, store hours and some departments tamped down sales, analysts said.