Answers
Mar 15, 2020 - 08:43 AM
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-b...
The company scans billions of price changes a week and has removed 530,000 offers and suspended 2,500 accounts because of coronavirus-related price gouging, he said. The company also removed millions of products that make unsupported claims about the coronavirus, he added.
Amazon said it is also working with several state attorneys general to prosecute offenders. “We will continue to assist all efforts to combat abuse in our store,” Mr. Huseman wrote.
Mr. Markey later praised Amazon’s response in a tweet. “All online retailers need to hold accountable predatory price-gougers who are profiting from panic,” he said.
The state of California is also taking this seriously as are other state attorneys general:
Mar 15, 2020 - 03:46 PM
A very insightful and timely question. Every successful entrepreneur, investor has to be able to see beyond the horizon. They have the ability to see past current events and to determine where opportunities lie in the future.
Of course the time to have ask this question was back in January when Coronavirus first surfaced or even last year before there was even any talk of Coronavirus, and in anticipation that it may someday happen.
The second aspect to this question is to narrow down the scope of area of opportunity that you either have expertise or are interested in exploiting. Given the scale of the impact of the Coronavirus, it is almost likely that any area of investment you make could yield dividends.
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If you have expertise in an area of the economy, it is easier to see the challenges and how the Coronavirus is impacting that sector of the economy and hence the opportunities that could be created to solve for those challenges.
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If you are enthusiastic about a particular sector or a particular company, it is possible that you could identify how the core expertise of your company can be leveraged to take advantage of the opportunity.
“Buy a stock the way you would buy a house. Understand and like it such that you’d be content to own it in the absence of any market.”
~Warren Buffett
Let’s take a look at the scope of the Coronavirus impact with regards to potential opportunities
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Geography:
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Which area of the world is Coronavirus tests and detection on the upswing?
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How are they managing containment?
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Which are yet to experience the same impact?
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How are these areas planning to contain it?
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What businesses are impacted in these areas?
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Which businesses have developed a solution to mitigate/minimize the impact of Coronavirus disruption?
Fig 1: Countries with Coronavirus
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Demographics: schools, elderly, professionals
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Who is most impacted? School and university closures
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Enterprises curtail travel and in-person meetings
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Business professionals are needing to stay home to care for children who are out of school
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Elderly are needing increased medical care
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Workflow: working from home, office closures,
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Enterprise workflow are disrupted
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Business rhythms are disrupted
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Logistics are interrupted
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Investments are delayed
Sectors:
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Retail:
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Pharmaceuticals:
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Travel: Airlines, Cruise, Uber –
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Coronavirus concerns, anxiety send travel industry into a spiral
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Coronavirus: Travel industry could lose $24 billion in tourism ...
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Hospitality – Hotels, Airbnb
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Technology – software (Zoom, Slack) are
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Service: Restaurants & Food delivery
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Healthcare, Medical, Research
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Consumer Packaged Good (CPG)
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Food:
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Coronavirus disrupts China meat imports, food supply during pork shortage
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How Coronavirus Is Impacting the Food Industry | Food & Wine
Oil & Gas:
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Education:
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Supply Chain:
Role: Are you asking as an investor, an entrepreneur or towards your retirement? All these variables plays a role in how you could approach the opportunity presented by the Coronavirus
Companies that are seeing significant growth during coronavirus
Visual Capitalist published a recent article outlining businesses that stand to benefit from the Coronavirus pandemic. Below are just a few of the business they track.
Zoom: Large enterprise business are requiring their employees to work from home. Schools are shutting down and requiring students to take online classes. It could be that even after coronavirus is contained and life returns to Companies that are providing video conferencing and videos solutions to classrooms are a great investment
Fig 2: Zoom
Dominos Pizza: With many states, cities and countries restricting social gatherings, getting food delivered to your home has taken on a new priority. Companies that deliver foods are hot during pandemics
Fig3: Dominos Pizza
Teladoc Health: If you can’t get in to see your Dr in a timely manner, you can use Teladoc. Don’t wait weeks for an appointment. Our doctors, therapists, and specialists can help you with the flu, infections, anxiety, stress, skin conditions, and provide advice on serious medical conditions. No matter what you're facing, we’re available from wherever you are by phone, video, or app. This app could be the future of healthcare
Fig 4: Teladoc
Virtu
Fig 5: Virtu
Summary:
To figure out how to take advantage of the Coronavirus, you have to either know which areas of the global economy and which sectors are adversely impacted; or a have a specific business or company that you want to discover how to leverage their core strengths during the Coronavirus spread
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Here’s what we now, even after the coronavirus is contained and mitigated, there will be other pandemics. Remember SARS, MERS?
Fig 6: NBC News Comparison of Prior Pandemics
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It is likely that businesses in most sectors are going to modify their business operations. Educational institutions are also likely to change how they teach and maybe adopt more remote learning technologies.
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Businesses and startups that offer remote learning, remote meetings, virtual technologies, immersive experiences such as augmented reality, mixed reality should do very well.
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Healthcare and medical services are probably going to be great investments as well.
Mar 20, 2020 - 06:25 AM
Image by Adriano Gadini from Pixabay
The most efficient way for anyone to profit from the coronavirus is almost certainly to buy stocks, as prices reach dramatic lows. (Although there was a recent surge following a steep drop, prices are likely to fall far more than they’ll rise before the pandemic is over.)
However, you state that you want to help people affected by the virus, or help stop its spread. Timely investments won’t accomplish either of those things. And other popular coronavirus profit methods, such as selling hand sanitizer and toilet paper at above-average prices, can be downright harmful.
Really, unless you work in an industry such as healthcare or politics, it’s not likely that you’ll be able to do much to directly help halt the virus. But there are a few possibilities for you that will be both profitable and helpful to other people, in some sense. The feasibility of those things will depend on your skills and prior experience, but here are a few ideas.
Assist Digital Marketing Efforts
While many industries are going to struggle through this pandemic, the digital marketing industry is seeing a boost. Brands that relied on brick-and-mortar sales must pivot to digital sales now in order to stay afloat, and brands that are already fully digital may double down on marketing efforts to compete for the attention of homebound consumers.
If you have any experience in the digital marketing world, now is the time to use it. A wide range of skills, like SEO know-how and social media marketing chops, are in demand right now. Even if you have no experience, this might be a good time to invest in an online course to develop some digital marketing skills you can use.
Of course, smaller businesses will benefit the most from this kind of help, but bigger ones will have heftier budgets to pay for it.
Provide Online Entertainment
It’s never easy to become a YouTube or TikTok star, or Instagram influencer. However, if you’ve been thinking about getting into the online entertainment world, the coronavirus is pushing up demand for fun content that can be consumed at home. And, of course, you can argue that providing entertainment is helping people in some way.
What your entertainment brand will look like will depend on your existing knowledge. You could release anything from a series of workout videos to a fun app, depending on what you know how to do. Making money from these endeavors is still a long shot, but you’ll have a better chance of it now, while everyone’s looking for digital content to consume.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Offer Remote Work Consulting
People and businesses in a wide range of industries find themselves suddenly pivoting toward remote work. This may herald a long-term shift toward working from home, as the coronavirus forces companies and workers to discover how feasible it is.
If you have any experience in the world of remote work, becoming a consultant to help brands and individuals through this transition could be both helpful and lucrative. Similarly, if you can sell something (such as an online course) that will help brands or workers go remote, now is a good time to do it.
Open an eCommerce Store
eCommerce was already the way of the future, but like remote work, the pivot toward shopping online has been sped up by the coronavirus. It’s relatively easy to open a new eCommerce store using online platforms like Shopify. You can make your store successful and helpful to people by selling useful or entertaining items at reasonable prices.
That said, opening a store during a pandemic may make it especially hard to set up a supply chain. You might find it difficult to source items from countries like China that have been heavily affected by the virus. So, make sure you have a reliable idea of how you’ll source your products if you plan to go the eCommerce route.
Release a Useful Product
A number of surprising products are doing well right now thanks to the coronavirus, from thermal imaging glasses to high-tech disinfectant tools. This might be the right time to release your brilliant product idea to the market - as long as it’s not exploitative.
Some of these successful products rely on harmful false claims, such as air purifiers that claim to destroy airborne coronavirus. But others are cutely innocuous, like Etsy artwork that reminds people to wash their hands. Generally speaking, now is a good time for products that have to do with cleaning, storage, emergency preparedness, nonperishable food, and home entertainment.
If you can successfully create and market a product linked to the coronavirus in some way, such as a nonperishable snack or an uplifting t-shirt, you could see healthy sales. However, eCommerce issues like the supply chain disruption mentioned above will still apply here. It’s also possible that the pandemic will disrupt shipping and delivery to customers, even if you can easily source your supplies. While demand for certain products is high right now, it’s not the easiest time to get started.
Profiting from the coronavirus is certainly possible, although not guaranteed, and will depend on your existing skillset. But no matter what you do, you’ll need to take care that your efforts are genuinely helpful, or at least harmless. Otherwise, you could find your work destroyed by bad press (or legal action), like the Amazon seller whose stockpile of 17,700 hand sanitizer bottles attracted national press - and national ridicule.
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