Alcohol
Unsurprisingly, if the movie theaters are closed, so are the bars. On the other hand, liquor stores seemed to have done very well during this period since sales for beer, cider, and malt beverages went up by 14%, 26.4% for spirits, and 27.6% for wines during the week ending March 14, according to Nielsen data. What’s more, the spike also affected boxed wine since sales went up by 53%, while sales for 24-packs of beer skyrocketed by 24%.
On average, it seems we spent around $124 on alcohol since the start of the pandemic. Most shockingly of all are the results of a study made by IWSR which found that alcohol sales went down in almost every other country except for ours! In fact, they predicted that overall sales for alcohol would be up by 2% in 2020.
Considering the fact that we spent $252.8 billion on alcohol in 2019, that 2% increase means some people have seen a massive profit despite COVID-19.
