Covid-19: Shoppers have moved online, but will they stay there?

Online orders and deliveries from retailers and restaurants have grown during the pandemic. Photograph: Alan Betson

The scale of disruption faced by the retail sector since the beginning of March is hard to overstate. All shops, save for those deemed essential, were forced to close for months and then when they were eventually allowed to reopen, have had to limit the numbers who could come through their doors.

As if that wasn’t challenging enough they also had to introduce all sorts of consumer-unfriendly measures while, in the background, lurked the virus that has caused all the upheaval.