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Ok it’s all doom and gloom at the moment about the economy tanking, but there must be some industries doing okay
I mean obviously supermarkets and amazon, but what about others?
How about others like consultancy around making companies more efficient? Local cafes and eateries from all the wfh bunch (hoping there isn’t a second lockdown of course)
Alcan.
Mercedes and associated lease companies will be doing well supplying all of the supermarkets home delivery vans
Internet providers, telecomms, etc.
Amazon and Royal Mail are doing alright, despite the latter manipulating the figures as per normal, to try and get the USO changed.
My wife is a manager at locum Doctor recruitment agency. They're doing fine.
The NHS seems to be pretty busy at the moment if that counts?
Dog breeders seem to be doing OK. My brother is selling golden labs for £3k each and has a waiting list. Before covid they were selling for £650 each.
Edit as don’t want to derail thread
PPE middlemen? et al
I can vouch for telecomms. The busiest I've seen it for 15 years, suppliers can't meet demand at the moment!
Corner shops
Bike shops
Car salesman
painters, joiners etc
Tradesmen I known are busier than ever
Serco. Making millions out of failing to provide their contracted services.
How about others like consultancy around making companies more efficient?
The only time we had a consultant round on some government sponsored scheme, they advised us make all our staff self employed or on zero hours and that the length of time it takes from appointment to being in a position to get paid made the whole sector of business unviable.
Apart from liking, respecting, and relying on our staff which meant we weren’t going anywhere near the advice, the advice was completely against HMRC regulations, the spirit of employment law (I am sure if you were greedy enough to contemplate this there would be a way round this), and morality.
I am not sure how much they charged the government for the consultation but my teenage son on a bad day could have offered better advice (or at least advice less likely to result in an employment tribunal or a big tax bill)
Sex pond manufacturers.
Pizza Oven Makers
From December baby product manufacturers.
Anyone in the Teams/Zoom/Webex space (and generally, tech supporting WFH stuff) is flat out busy.
Yep, the pet industry is doing well and so are outdoor sports. Kayaks and paddleboards have been flying off the shelves all summer.
Any company that has donated enough to the tories to get a contract they never have to deliver
Face masks manufacturers....
Regards supermarkets and corner shops doing well.... Some have done well so far however some arnt. retail press reported 30% of independent retail (food) shut during lockdown, some have reliance on office workers.
Supermarkets, although I'm sure will have done well, are now having a downturn in trade but an upturn in delivery trade.
Local BBQ shop near us has been killing it - he reckons people who binned off their big overseas holidays spent Money on the garden instead.
Same story with the garden centres near us - they were rammed as soon as they were able to re-open.
I went into our LBS a few weeks ago (North Kent - sells Yeti/Santa-cruz/etc) and he didn't have a single new bike in there.
I asked him what was going on and he said he'd sold everything during lock-down and now couldn't get anymore stock.
He's worried about Christmas stock as the distributors keep cutting his order or 2021 stock due to pressures from bigger shops.
He did really well during lock-down but reckons lots of small bike shops will struggle over the winter with no stock as they can't survive on servicing alone.
Peloton, Zwift, expensivehomeexcercisestuffonline.com etc
People selling hand gel have been rubbing their hands together.
Divorce lawyers
Estate agents selling properties on the Scottish Islands must have had a bumper year.
I was working part-time in my LBS up until June - it was flat out mental, 200% busier than they're busiest period ever. Web sales in 1 month were bigger than the previous year.
IT Support, we've never been busier and whilst new client recruitment has always been slow for us, it's picked up massively as the bigger players in our industry who are more 'efficient' than us are struggling with demand and small business who've traditionally do it themselves need support to facilitate WFH. We also can't secure enough stock of hardware to meet demand.
Car sales, New and Used I know businesses who sell both and their biggest issues is they can't get stock at the moment. We bought a new car for my Wife, the dealer sold her old car 3yrs old and 20k miles for £5 less than we bought it new.
Builders, at least home improvement sized ones are still booked 6 months in advance, one of my mates who runs one missed 3 days of work back in March. Completely horror story on day 1 as most of his jobs got cancelled, within days he'd either replaced them, or they'd been rebooked.
Larger builders are struggling a bit, large contracts take years to start, but can get cancelled in seconds. Also some are finding it hard to make existing contracts profitable whilst maintaining SD. Still, there are loads of School and Hospitals being built.
Bike shops Obvs.
Looking at some of the business pages, it seems that consumers have't really decided to save their money, through a combination of boredom and a "post Covid boom" they've spent it all where they could, when they could. Obviously it wasn't really "post covid" but it felt like it and people spent to enjoy themselves. We'll have to look at the unemployment figures through winter now to know if it will happen again in the Spring when we're likely to be really post-covid.
This is almost ironic, but the two industries / business we all laughed (in work) that were going to do well have suffered the most.
A Nursing agency we support has closed for good, they'd been having a tough run of it and whilst you'd might assume they'd be busy, in actual fact with most electives and out-patient clinics being cancelled and A&E admissions down 70% stopped in an influx of new 'customers' they had almost zero work. Most of their roster have taken jobs within the NHS again.
Funeral Directors. Funerals are steady business at any time, whereas you might have to wait a week to bury a loved one, at the (last) peak of Covid it was nearly 3 weeks, they might have managed to squeeze another service in per day, but with only Simple funerals being allowed, they've had fleets of cars and their drivers sitting idle, no services to arrange etc. Having buried my FIL in April, it was the most low key thing imaginable, took about 15 mins. There's no money in that for them.
My wife is daft busy with registering chemicals, including hand sanitisers for all manner of companies. We're slightly busy too at PHE, no idea why though.
As above, gym kit companies, outdoor kit etc. And definitely postal and couriers.
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Cougar
Full MemberPeople selling hand gel have been rubbing their hands together.
👏
Banks have been quite busy administering the government loans. Investment banking has been very busy with all the large corporates raising money to tide them through the hard times. Transactional banking (debit cards, ATMs etc) dropped right off but is now back to normal (almost). Very large provisions on the balance sheet though for bad loans 🙁
I got put on garden leave at the start of the month and will be mads redundant on the 30th.
Start a new job at a pharmaceutical company on the 1st Oct so hopefully they’ll be doing no alright!
Gaming software companies. Shares are very healthy there.
I got put on garden leave at the start of the month and will be mads redundant on the 30th.
Start a new job at a pharmaceutical company on the 1st Oct so hopefully they’ll be doing no alright!
See, I love redundancy stories like that - assume you got a bit of a pay-off to?
That's pretty much how my 2nd redundancy went.
Any company that sells digital services that prior to CV19 were considered interesting but not essential as the face-to-face version was preferred.
For example:
- companies providing remote surveying via drones
- online insurance claim loss adjusting - rather than visit a damaged house website, they can look at client photos of the damage
- online estate agencies
I would imagine makers of shotguns and tweeds will have a had a bit of a boom in the last couple of weeks
High-end bike manufacturers. 2020 stock is basically gone, and someone on here was suggesting much of 2021's stock is already accounted for too
I work in 'underserved' banking (credit builder cards etc) which is doing fairly well as it would in a lull in the economy, AND in the IT area which has been mega busy since March, deploying over a thousand laptops etc.
assume you got a bit of a pay-off to?
Cheers, was bricking it as couldn’t be at a worse time and I’m the only income in the house. Cv went off last Friday, interviews Weds & offer Thurs. never been so quick especially as was my first interview in 7 years.
Settlement Agreement still being negotiated. Not a brilliant amount but better than nowt esp as I have an immediate start. Hopefully old employer doesn’t drag it out so I can still leave on the 30th.
I work in ‘underserved’ banking
Cabot by any chance?
VOD services?
Netflix
Sky
Prime
Disney+
Etc
Even more so come Autumn Winter
I do interim work and the market is super busy
I've upped my rate 20% since March and am turning down contracts
It would be great to get back to working at client premises though - I really don't enjoy working from home 5 days a week
From what I see amongst my clients (commercial banking):
The good:
Uk holidays / caravan parks / lodges etc - had an amazing summer, with extended bookings into the autumn. More than made up for closure in q2.
Board games sales have had a massive boom.
Food manufacturing / processing have had a good covid where they sell into retail (rather than food service).
The bad:
Wedding venues
Breweries
Nuff said really.
As above banking itself has been very busy with support loans etc but income for most banks will be well down due to low base rate, higher losses and less money being moved around. Doubt there will be many tears shed!
Horticulture, I run a commercial nursery, we couldn't grow enough plants. We made an absolute killing. Everyone was at home gardening
Surprised nobody has mentioned Weight Watchers, Noom and other fad diet peddlars.
Just seen an ad for XLS medical “up to 5x more weight loss!” clinically proven weight loss pills! Bet they’re doing ok.
Windows 7 legacy software switcher overers.
My local offy said every day was like Christmas Eve
Cabot by any chance?
God no! 😀 I know a few ex-employees of theirs though.
Horticulture, I run a commercial nursery, we couldn’t grow enough plants. We made an absolute killing. Everyone was at home gardening
I suppose for some people money does grow on trees!
@ Ringo, a customer (haulage contractor) told me that peat sales had doubled. Ireland is exporting more peat than it has in the ground.
Any company run by a Tory MP
Most of these I understand, but why car sales? ‘Cos people don’t want to use public transport? Or ‘cos some folk have spare cash around as they haven’t been on holiday?
I think it’s people treating themselves. For the new market. But I heard that small Used petrol cars were in demand here in Bristol Which is probably commuters not wanting to use public transport.
The bad:
...
Breweries
One thing that hadn't occurred to me, I was in a pub at the weekend and they'd no ale on. The landlord told me, they aren't allowed enough customers into the premises to be able to sell it. Wasn't a small pub either.
Picture framing. Never been so busy. Stopped taking orders for four days last week due to lack of storage space.
It seems that during lockdown everyone was redecorating and buying prints.
I need it to end soon. That staff are starting to seriously wilt.
Companies selling shit masks with pretty logos on to mugs who think they’re some kind of fashion statement.
We were selling compost by the Arctic, never seen anything like it.
My former employer, manufacturer of industrial perfumes used in hand soap and sanitiser gel. They've got £5.1m on the books for October shipment.
I’m a designer & signmaker, ticking over during lockdown with essential stuff but now very busy again. A lot of Covid related stuff obviously but normal work starting to come back now too.
it wouldn’t occur to you because it’s absolute nonsense! Something else going on.One thing that hadn’t occurred to me, I was in a pub at the weekend and they’d no ale on. The landlord told me, they aren’t allowed enough customers into the premises to be able to sell it.
Only the leasing companies, well the supermarket I do work for just extended the lease life. So not bought more vehicles this year so far just extending the life of current fleet.
Following being made redundant due to Covid, I found new employment as a line mechanic in a beverage can plant.
Not a bad business to be in with everyone drinking more beer at home.
Apple seem to be doing alright .
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-apple-market-value-tops-2trn-for-the-first-time-12052542
Golf courses have been turning prospective new members away becuase they are full.
Golf courses have been turning prospective new members away becuase they are full.
Is golf the new cycling?
Pharmaceutical Contract Research Organisations ........
Can’t think why but they are rushed off their feet for some reason 🤔
Waste companies - at work we are collecting 8x as much litter from the countryside sites that people love so much.
Basic food manufacturing like Oilseed crushing, Soya & Flour Milling which I work in.
Never been as busy, make 400 Tonnes a day at our site but sales are close to 450 Tonnes a day.
I've held interviews for 6 new posts since March and the capitol investment for the next 5 years is x10 what I've seen in the last 25 years,
It might not be a sexy industry but we are still going strong
As previously mentioned , Computer Gaming is doing very well - we’ve just had our 2 best quarters ever.
My wife has been mega busy throughout lockdown, so much so she hasn't been able to talk holiday. Although we've got next week off.
She is a HR consultant, but its been tough going. Lots of redundancy processes but also lots of recruitment. She helps a packaging company and they have expanded very quickly and cannot keep up with demand. A small It company has been run ragged that she helps.
A big casualty though has been a private school. Only a handful of parents signed up, so they've had to make a raft of redundancies. I think they were already in the red though due to massive investment that didn't pay off. Plus many parents pulling their kids out.
Gymshark sportswear company have been doing very well as their clothes can be worn for exercising outside and are great quality investment pieces.ceo is a very young guy who built it from nothing.
We had our best month ever in August, September looks to be beating that.
Last quarter to date is over 300% up year on year.
Big change in our offering now we are doing denim but biggest seller is Action Blankets. Mad.
we are doing well. we are specialist health, safety and environmental consultants who work a lot with clinical waste companies, nhs, msw sites etc... another part of our group cant take guys on quick enough for their niche market.
a lot our competitors are letting folks go as they have a less diverse range of services so if manufacturing slows or decides to reduce spending they're in trouble.
not breweries
we are dead in the water
most pubs empty post eat out to help out
75% down across trade and retail sales
brewery up for sale and i am potentially unemployed next month
Online Outplacement supporting redundancies, online IT and tech support and language teaching for international pharma companies...
My mate owns the LBS, he says it’s the first time in 15 years he’s had all his accounts up to date.
Another mate has a local cafe in the centre of a medium sized town, her takings are still less than half compared to pre lockdown.
On-line wine sales.
Packaging manufacturers/suppliers
Dog breeders seem to be doing OK. My brother is selling golden labs for £3k each and has a waiting list. Before covid they were selling for £650 each.
We are looking to buy at the moment. People are asking and getting silly money at the moment. £1800 for mongrels ( Cavachon / Cockerpoo cross)
Bonkers
Lady in our office spent £3500 on a cockerpoo
Then got the redundancy letter the nect week
And she thinks ks it acceptedable to bring it in to work and piss all over the office floor, making a paisly print pattern our of a pale blue carpets
Blankets. Mad.
He ain’t lyin
The funeral director in my town has a very nice new Porsche 911 turbo S. In white, not black.
Car sales, New and Used I know businesses who sell both and their biggest issues is they can’t get stock at the moment. We bought a new car for my Wife, the dealer sold her old car 3yrs old and 20k miles for £5 less than we bought it new.
Dealer I bought my new (14 months old) car from isn’t selling much in new cars, but quite a demand for used. We’re very busy with ex-lease vans and cars from Arval and to an extent Motability, but we repair and refurbish them, plus we repair, refurbish and decommission British Gas vehicles, and AA/BSM cars, installing dual-controls and applying graphics to new cars for them; we’ve had three transporter loads of Ford Pumas in the last week, with more to come, 100 in total, which means plenty of work - the business as a whole has taken on fifty new staff across the five sites around the country.
All of which really has nothing to do with Covid, we’re just very lucky to have won three new contracts around the time that Covid hit, and are in the position to take advantage of them.
Banks are busy, lending money at cost and making nothing. Before anyone far left loses their sht.
Serco. Making millions out of failing to provide their contracted services.
They're pretty much making nothing and the government don't have the ability to mobilise at scale. Not sure what the solution is tbh.
robowns
Local public health had the expertise to do track and trace which could have easily been scaled up and because they had the expertise would have been cheaper and more effective
Brexit - so many things being 'sorted' without any awareness for the public and getting passed without due diligence stuff being made public...