Exploring how business and life have changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

New Normal

The Go Game is pioneering a unique remote experience.

New Normal: Employee team building goes virtual

Features

Industry professionals weigh in on how they're adapting and planning for the future.

New Normal: Can the cannabis industry survive the coronavirus crisis?

Retail

Industry professionals weigh in on how they're adapting.

New Normal: The cannabis industry

mhm. Mhm we've seen over the last several years. Obviously, more and more states began to legalize for medical purposes. We've seen people legalized for recreational purposes and at the very bare minimum. We've seen a tremendous amount of decriminalization, a lot of the states. The hardest thing for us has been the access to capital that traditional Wall Street mechanisms aren't open to cannabis companies. That, coupled with just the political environment being pretty unstable around cannabis, the cannabis market was having difficulties not because there was a demand. Um, demand far outstrips supply in this country by 10 to 1. Um, the problem was that because of the federal illegality and because of a lot of the road blocks that were being put up on even on the state basis, uh, with cannabis, the cost of capital was very, very hot. Normally, if you're a tech company or a retail company or a medical device company, you raise private equity. Maybe you go public downstream. The big banks come in, they raise your capital, they take your public and so forth that wasn't available, especially in the U. S. Market. So there was this vacuum coming into the middle of latter part of the last year, where almost every company in the space had a challenging time. Getting funding now layered. On top of that, we wake up one morning and the whole industry. I shouldn't even say the whole industry, the whole world is shut down from a consumer standpoint. Yeah, Fortunately, in most jurisdictions were considered an essential service. We had a surge of sales when people kind of panicked accumulated products, food and medical supplies and cannabis. But after that, the foot traffic has just died down. We've watched sales declines that are relatively significant. Specifically, look at Nevada. The volumes definitely dropped off. Nevada's turned out to be the marketing capital of cannabis because it caters for 45 million tourists from around the world and around the United States. If you take away those 45 million tourists, well, a lot of the money has dried up at that point in time. So we've had lack of capital coming into this, and now we're at a point in time where we still have all of our fixed overhead expenses. But we don't have the sales volumes of the cash flow and the gross margin, too, offset that expense. And it's been, you know, I think rather troublesome. And you've seen a lot of companies begin to do significant layoffs. We just did around a few weeks ago. We did another round about a month and a half ago, and you're seeing that as a systemic issue across the entire industry when you're in a production sort of capability where you can actually just put everything in a refrigerator and hit the pause button. That's an easy one When you're in a gross situation, Um, you have, you know, months of stock that's in various stages, so you can't just hit pause when you're the dispensary stage. Um, you know, you're just trying to adjust to the new normal of delivery service as opposed to in house consumer interaction. If you think about revenue per square foot, your average retailer does a few $100 in revenue per square foot. You'll see a lot of dispensaries in multiple marketplaces. They're joining from 5 to $10,000 in revenue per square foot, and they do that because they pile people through these retail registers. If you look at the lines that are out there, that can't be accomplished from 9 to 5 with social distancing, distancing Cramer's. So just the social distancing rules in and of themselves put us in a position where we can't kind of realized the revenue we would have realized under normal situations, so that has a profound impact on us From a revenue standpoint, we are certainly doing things to bring customers in. But we really don't want people want them to take advantage of curbside. We want them to take advantage of delivery. So all of our efforts are really into those two corridors we had to go from walking into a store and purchasing the product to delivery only on the cannabis community is extremely resilient and creative. We went from something like 50 cars to over 300 cars in less than a month of delivery services. We brought temporary employees. We worked with the most needy organizations, like the restaurant associations in all the states where there are tons of employees. Plus there they know how to run a registered. They know how to use the service who were able to bring employees. And from that, obviously a lot of these people may stay on with us. Hopefully, um, you know, as we go forward, there's more people to hire for pure leaf. And for the whole industry. Before the coronavirus, the marijuana industry was one of the largest percentage employer increases in the United States. Um, so as we come out of this, I would you know, you should look at the employment numbers. This is going to be very important in the cannabis industry, will do its part to absorb some of that. There's some radical changes from a consumer behavioral standpoint that this coronavirus is forcing us to adapt to. But I think there's some changes that I think are going to be long standing for us to keep in place post coronavirus because we don't know when the next pandemic will come be. We don't know what the residual infection rate is going to be on a go forward basis. See, we don't know if they're going to have a vaccine for this anytime soon. So I think people will continue to be nervous about their travel behaviors or recreational behaviors and their outing behaviors and that type of thing. So I think what's really going to suffer the experiential retailers the destination spots in the short run, and I think those that are putting time, effort, energy into both delivery and curbside will thrive on an ongoing basis. But you know, again, right now, all corridors are challenged in this significant headwinds. But coming out of this, I think business will be done differently for a significant period of time. I have read an article and somebody called it an extinction level events. And as I said earlier, we came into this issue. We came into this crisis under significant financial strain. Already all the companies did. And now this. You know, the lack of revenue coupled with the fact that the fact that we have significant tax burden, tax overhead and no federal or state stimulus to support us through this time, I think you're gonna watch some companies go under. And I think you're gonna watch some consolidation. New operations are clearly going to hurt, whereas the more mature ones will attract the customers and actually do much better in this point in time. It really is survival right now, and it's gonna be survival of the fittest is going to be survival of those that can adapt right now, and so you know. Fortunately, Nancy Pelosi, Cory Gardner and some of other leaders are at least starting to talk about the fact that the candidates companies are excluded from this federal stimulus plan and hopefully, this next round we get included in some capacity. I don't think people really understand that this is a vertically integrated manufacturing and retailing industry, all of the cultivation, all of the extraction is manufacturing done in this country. In these local jurisdictions, these are local jobs, the retails local jobs. Most of California is not owned by big public companies. It is fragmented, mom and pops that employed thousands and thousands and thousands of people. We hope that our political leaders begin to understand that these jobs are high paying jobs, their equitable jobs, their domestic jobs that are going to end up overseas in the foreseeable future. We hope, and their jobs that need some support right now, so it isn't about supporting the cannabis industry. It's about supporting us as employers because we've gone out of our way to pay above market wages, give above market benefits. I think our our minimum wage we pay in the company's 17 or $18 an hour with full medical benefits. We hope our political leaders understand that we hope were included in the next round of federal stimulus. But if we're not again, it's going to be as that journalists had said, an extinction level event, I think coming out of this mm.

So a few months back, I landed a dream internship .>> It was like a big accomplishment and >> I was really proud of myself and then all the offers had been recently >> rescinded and canceled due to the Coronavirus situation and just makes it very uncertain about where I may be going now professionally like Many college students, the Coronavirus pandemic has meant not only online classes, but having to watch their job and internship offers go down the drain. So what is the new normal like for the class of COVID- 19 ?>> Emotionally speaking, I think it's been a really stressful time. It's supposed to be the best time of your life. You're graduating from From college or graduate with your master's degree, and you have a lot of high hopes for the future and thinking, Okay, I have so many options of where I could begin my career. And now with everything going on, I feel like those opportunities have Diminished greatly. It's really hard because a lot of the jobs have been postponed or put on hold. I've definitely seen a decrease in job postings kind of getting that like, just kidding. We can't hire you anymore. It was eartbreaking. I cried for a little bit because you work for something and then it kind of just gets ripped out of your hands. I'm gonna have a bit of a gap in my like resume If I'm competing against somebody who did a remote internship versus me who had their internship presented, not as sympathetic as a hiring manager maybe to that one person has an internship experience where another person ,>> I feel stuck right now I feel like there's not too much that I can do to help myself further in the job search process. And then also it's just the struggle of not knowing where things will be in the future. Even when this pandemic ends. I don't know how the markets going to look and how companies are going to be able to bounce back and possibly hire new people or if they're just going to have to continue to lay people off. Hi, my name is Shayna Walker. I'm the director of campus recruiting and diversity and inclusion at horizon media. Overall we are in a hiring freeze. Its difficult right because we even as recruiters are very invested in the program and we want it to continue in whatever form it can but obviously we are in bit of a Position. The students are not only losing hands- on experience, it's also adding a financial burden and many feel that the government aid has overlooked the student population. When they were coming out with the stimulus package, I was excited to know like okay, even if I don't have a job, I will get this and then when I read the details, I realized that Because my mother still claims me as a dependent, I won't be getting that you can't fall for unemployment. I'm a student. Having that much of a loss of expected income really hurts when it comes to planning my financial future, especially with college. I have students currently that Are the sole breadwinners in their family. We've talked a lot about student loan suspension for payments, but that only applies to the people who have graduated and are currently paying on student loans. What happens to the students who have to forego the next year of college? I think that there needs to be something to help them into a situation so that they can complete their degrees. And then it can be supported, especially given a difficult time, I'm sure their families are facing as well. I've worked in the Filip services for about 15 years, and we've gone through recession and challenging times before During those times we have focused and poster students on having multiple plans being flexible. It's okay to not be okay. See the chaos but see the opportunities that are present and the midst of the chaos to be intentional about how they're learning more about themselves and to help draw the future. What work will look like and what will our new normal look like. Students are in the front line of that innovation and they are now looking at things from a much different point of view, they are able to walk outside their box. They're are going to be an amazing asset to the workspace. I'm trying to Maybe make a positive out of this. I'm using this time to kind of just redo my entire portfolio, build my brand work on at home projects. For myself. This isn't like the end of the road. It's just a speed bump, which is gonna slow us down a little bit. This won't last forever and that we will be able to overcome it this time. It's really hard for all of us. But we're basically all in this together. We will get to our chosen career field and whatever our hopes and dreams are, we'll have it. [ MUSIC ]

New Normal: College students face uncertain career beginnings due to COVID-19

They face hiring freezes and rescinded internships.

COVID-19 creates uncertainty for college students

From hiring freezes to rescinded internships, many soon-to-be graduates are having to reconcile with a future career filled with question marks.

It feels like we've been in the midst of this election cycle for years because we have been. And now that we've finally made it to the general we find ourselves ensconced in this cloud of a global pandemic and facing what might likely be a great depression. So the question going forward is, how does it actually impact the election and how do we think about it going forward? [ MUSIC ] In a normal world, the election would be the main driver of the news for the next six months would you all be here there'd be crazy graphics on CNN and MSNBC. But clearly that's not the case right now. It's incredibly unlikely that it will be canceled or even postponed. So this date is set by federal law. [ MUSIC ] And President Donald Trump has no power to move it. He cannot cancel or postpone the election. Now Congress would have to pass a law with a date change and that seems highly improbable because the House is currently Democratically controlled. So we are going to have this election on Tuesday, November 3rd. Elections took place in 1916 and 1944 those were during the World Wars. The Spanish Flu which is kind of The most similar situation to what we're in right now occurred right in the middle of President Woodrow Wilson's term, but congressional elections still happened during that time in many cases, quarantines were actually lifted just five days before the polls opened. What is interesting is there's an amendment in the Constitution. That mandates that and I quote the the President and the Vice President shall end it new moon on the 20th day of January. No matter what happens. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are going to be required constitutionally to leave the office. So under normal circumstances, the speaker of the house would be next in line for the presidency. And that would be Nancy Pelosi. She would become the president. But if we cancel the elections used remember, they're also Congressional elections happening. So without reluctant her term would also expire on January 3rd 2021 along with every single member of the house If we're all stuck in our houses if we have to shelter in place, how could we actually go out and vote? There are fears that some districts may remain under this strict Shelter in Place Order, while others are kind of, you know, more rural. They're allowed to go out and Vote the restrictions aren't as intense, and that could be enough to sway results in some states like in Florida, where you might see people in Miami remain in their homes. And then, people you know rural areas are more likely to vote republican actually be able to go out. One big idea that people are talking about right now as a way to save the the election is by expanding this vote by mail. Thing that we have going on. There are currently five states and that's Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah that allow all voters to cast their vote by mail. And there are 21 other states that use vote by mail already. For some races are mostly local elections like school board seats. But, the infrastructure is in place and other states are considering changing that to more federal elections. High profile democrats like Michele Obama have been out advocating for that recently, as well. Some republicans like it. Florida governor Rob DeSantis for example has spoken in favor of voting by mail. But there is one Prominent Republican who does not like it, and that is President Donald Trump, and he has spoken out against it very publicly. Some of the claims he's made about it are false. He claimed that at least a significant increase in voter fraud, which is actually not the case .>> Because you know, the things with bundling and all of the things that are happening with votes, were by mail. Where thousands of votes are gathered? And I'm not going to say which party does it but thousands of votes are gathered and they come in and they're dumped in a location and then all of a sudden you lose elections if you think you're gonna win. About 20 million Americans are now newly unemployed. Many of you across the country are forced to worry about immediate survival. Right. So they have to think about how to pay their rent, how to feed their families. The idea of devoting time to this presidential election kind of feels a little bit impossible right now for many Americans, I would say COVID- 19 is going to be it. A huge topic of consideration when to comes to how people pick a candidate. This is clearly the number one issue in the country right now. And I would imagine it will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. I'm sure we will exit poll after exit poll showing that this is what voters are thinking about as they head to the polls this November. [ MUSIC ]

Will the 2020 general election be postponed or cancelled? Fortune’s Nicole Goodkind explains.

New Normal: The 2020 general election takes a back seat to COVID-19

Politics

The election is taking a backseat amid COVID-19 crisis

Will 2020 Presidential Election Be Postponed? 

[ MUSIC ] [ SOUND ] Hello. Hi, grandpa. I'm just calling to see if you got your delivery actually? That was a great service. They brought it down, right back to the door, and that was it. So you got the milk and eggs and all that stuff? Yup, everything. Very friendly delivery People too. You have to keep me posted. Hopefully we can get a delivery slot next time. Yeah, I'm gonna need it. Grocery store delivery apps have been the only way I've been able to help take care of family members during this pandemic. Getting groceries and essential items has become a growing concern for people all over the world. Of the world. [ MUSIC ] People are afraid to risk their health by going out to the stores, thus they're getting things delivered. They're using services like Curb- side pickup and it's become the new norm for many. [ MUSIC ] All of us have had to change the way we shop a little bit because of this pandemic. Whether it's getting used to social distancing measures in stores, or converting to, becoming converts to online ordering. And the grocers have had to meet these new expectations, these new demands, and some of them are kind of struggling to keep up with What's been a huge spike in demand for online ordering. And also people stockpiling, panic buying buying many more items than usual. So the impact on the grocery industry has been huge. I think people heard a couple weeks ago. Hey, go out stock up for two weeks you might be quarantined for two weeks have enough supply. So we saw wholesale apps Costco BJs. Those had their all time highs, right? In terms of new downloads, new installs, new users and things like instacart instacart is breaking download records for itself every single day lately. And so it just keeps hitting a new all time high. The same thing was shipped, owned by target breaking records. These are the service that we were while we're working now. [ MUSIC ] There has been several ways that this has affected our a day to day operations. The main focus is that we have been having lately are making sure that the social distancing outlines are being followed. The challenges that the shift employees are facing right now, is an overwhelming amount of orders that are being placed, and also an unavailability of products that the customers are wanting. So they're having to ask the customers while they're picking their orders out for an alternative to the actual product that they want in the first place. So the problem is simply that the existing online grocery services were not ever built or haven't been built for this kind of demand. If you look at online grocery penetration in the US prior to the coronavirus pandemic, it was at most about 4 % of people who are shopping online for groceries. In the UK where I lived, it was better or twice that. But still only 8 %. And now, I mean according to some of the figure between US. Since it's about, it's more than 40 % of the people who have been wanting to place online grocery orders during this time period, and some retails have seen demand grow as much as 700 %. There aren't enough delivery slots for people to get, to obtain. While most employers are having to lay off their employees Target and other big retails, they actually happen to hire people to keep up with demand. [ MUSIC ] Walmart and Amazon, they have been kind of on a growth tear anyway. When I look at the app data, I actually don't see a big change in trend line. Only because they are already growing at a pretty good rate. Target, might be a little bit of a different story. They have a lot less in- app activity. Target really started you know, getting a boost around the basically the beginning of March that led up into its peak of now this isn't its peak ever but peak in terms of recency had like 53, 000 downloads on March 15. Since then it has been falling. I think that was an initial like, let's go out let's go get our stuff. There are a couple other things that have happened during the pandemic that may not last. So if you look at accardo, for instance, Since their average order size before the pandemic was 50 items in an order, but during the pandemic in part because people are panic buying, they're stock piling, they've seen the average order size increase to 80 items per order, and they don't think that that will last after the pandemic passes. I think in the US there's some opinion polling about how many people actually enjoy Doing their weekly grocery shop. And it's only about like 15 % of people say that they really like going to the grocery store. So I think if people try online ordering and it works for them and they like it, they're probably gonna continue doing it after this is over the grocers are gonna have to get used to meeting that online demand. It's probably put forward their business plans in this regard by several years. No one know what to expect and where this is gonna go. We still dont know where it's gonna go completely. It beats having to go out there, taking a trip to the supermarket and not finding what you need. Thanks a million again. Okay, no problem. Okay, bye bye. All right, bye. [ MUSIC ]

Fortune explores the toll grocery delivery orders have taken on the grocery industry, and explores what it means for the future of delivery apps like Instacart.

New Normal: Grocers and delivery services adapt to COVID-19

What does it mean for the future of the industry?

New Normal

New Normal: Employee team building goes virtual

Latest episode

The Go Game is pioneering a unique remote experience.

Episodes (5 episodes)

New Normal: Employee team building goes virtual

New Normal: Can the cannabis industry survive the coronavirus crisis?

New Normal: College students face uncertain career beginnings due to COVID-19

New Normal: The 2020 general election takes a back seat to COVID-19

New Normal: Grocers and delivery services adapt to COVID-19