Black Friday is just around the corner, but rising COVID cases seem poised to decimate brick-and-mortar traffic. Digital retail companies will have reason to celebrate however, good news for the Global X E-commerce ETF (EBIZ).
The fund is already up almost 60% year-to-date according to Morningstar performance numbers. This despite not holding retail powerhouse Amazon in its top 10 holdings. Instead, EBIZ holds niche performers in retail, names like Etsy and Rakuten.
EBIZ offers investors:
- High Growth Potential: EBIZ enables investors to access high growth potential through companies that are positioned to benefit from the increased adoption of E-commerce as a distribution model.
- An Unconstrained Approach: EBIZ’s composition transcends classic sector, industry, and geographic classifications by tracking an emerging consumer theme.
- ETF Efficiency: In a single trade, EBIZ delivers access to dozens of companies with high exposure to the E-commerce theme.
“Following a precipitous drop in customer foot traffic beginning in March of this year, we observed a slow but steady increase from mid-April through June as we climbed back up to 50% of last year’s numbers,” said CEO John Kelly of marketing software company Zenreach. “However, since July, we have seen a flattening of retail traffic, and we have remained around the 50% mark for the past four months or so.”
“There’s no reason to expect an increase in foot traffic anytime soon—the U.S. recently set a new record with 140,000 daily COVID-19 cases, the clearest indication yet that the coronavirus pandemic is far from over and is something that we will all have to live with for at least another several months,” Kelly added. “Understandably, a large portion of the population still has serious concerns about brick-and-mortar businesses’ health and safety practices at this time. Anything that leads consumers to feel safer and have more confidence to go out in public to patronize businesses without having to worry about becoming infected—particularly something like a vaccine that could impact millions of people—is sure to have a positive effect on retail foot traffic.”
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