Street Fight’s December Theme: Leaving 2020
This post is the latest in our “Leaving 2020” series. It will be an editorial focus for the month of December, and you can see the rest of the series here.
It’s been a heck of a year, and not in a good way. As 2020 winds down, there’s ample recovery and soul searching to do. Fortunately, the tech and media sectors that Street Fight covers fared better than several other market segments. Then again, local commerce was hit hard, considering brick-and-mortar impediments.
But when we look back in a few months or a few years, we’ll have the benefit of hindsight. What will be the biggest lessons from 2020 when it comes to innovation and preparedness in local commerce? One thing’s for sure: Local business resilience and survival mapped closely to digital adoption and savvy.
As we’ve examined, one of 2020’s silver linings was a sudden inflection in the digital transformation that’s been gradually increasing over the past two decades. As just one example, e-commerce abruptly shot up to almost 15% of U.S. retail spending after hovering around 10% for the past decade.
While scrambling to survive by meeting those market realities, several local businesses gained a digital crash course that now emboldens their competitive edge. They’re primed and fire-tested for the next era of local commerce. By saying that, we don’t wish to marginalize those who didn’t survive the past 9 months.
But questions still remain: What will the “next normal” look like in the post-Covid era of local commerce? Will things go back to the old normal or be a hybrid reality that cherry-picks components and new perspectives from the past nine months? Will e-commerce dip back down to pre-Covid levels or keep surging?
We’ll be answering these questions and others throughout the month, along with 2021 predictions (’tis the season) for our theme, Leaving 2020. As frequent Street Fight readers know, we have an overarching theme each month. Though we reactively cover news from the local commerce world, these themes add a proactive element.
Collectively, these themes comprise Street Fight’s editorial charter. Individually, they include everything from local shopping to autonomous vehicles (see them all here). Some are ongoing staples, while others are timely trends that dominate the Covid era. This month’s theme is a bit of both.
So, look out for the tag “Leaving 2020.” We’ll label posts so you can discover them daily or actively browse them. Coverage will include our own daily reporting, deeper analytical dives from columnists, and a steady flow of contributions from business leaders developing first-hand insights.
Speaking of which, we’ll take this chance to remind you about our editorial contributor program. If you have unique perspective and insights, we’d love to hear from you. As always, we’ll prioritize and fast-track submissions that align with the monthly theme, as well as 2021 concrete predictions.
Reach out to us with suggestions for monthly themes, opportunities to contribute, or to amplify your brand messaging alongside this thematic coverage. On that note, we’re excited to also announce that we’ve launched the latest version of our media kit. Check it out, and come be part of the narrative.
