KME.digital is developing a unique, regional business information index and service, based on data collected from many on and offline sources, as well as direct feedback from a community of business leaders. These are leaders who themselves interact with hundreds of other local businesses, through business groups, associations, schools and many other community leadership roles. Invitations to our initial leadership and advisory cohort are underway – as are the initial newsletter and information report.
Serving and working with hundreds of businesses and organizations in this region, across many B2B, B2C and B2G industries, KME.digital can observe a large universe of business trends. Across the Northern Virginia region, we can group non-retail activity into two major categories for general analysis – “Professional Services” and “Home Services”. These equate to NAICS code ranges such as 54-“Professional, Scientific and Technical Services”, 61 -”Educational Services” and 62-”Healthcare and Social Assistance” (for Professional Services), and 23-”Construction”, 48/49-”Transportation and Warehousing” and 56-”Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services”.
Preliminary Insights
At a broad level, summary observations include the following. Note this information includes summary, abstracted data only, continually building on surveys, reviews and fully-redacted data.
Home Services as a broad grouping is experiencing a major uptick in consumer interest since December, consistent across all regions, which include the DC, Arlington, Reston and Ashburn major population areas, and the smaller regions such as Chantilly, Springfield, Centreville, Annandale, Alexandria, Front Royal, etc. This stands in part with common reason, coming out of the pandemic lockdowns.
The Professional Services group is experiencing far more interest from outside the region than Home Services, not only from DC, but Baltimore, Annapolis, plus from other major U.S. regions and overseas. This information is also pandemic-related, as many more providers have moved offerings online vs. in-person. While Professional Services remained somewhat constant during the pandemic, an upturn in new customer interest is now underway this March into June (vs. the Home Services upturn already underway mid-winter).
Very significant domination of overall consumer interest is originating from the 24-35 age group, over all other age groups, particularly in Home Services.