"If the retail, hospitality and service sectors are going to survive and thrive, we need to support them, but we need to hear from them first," UTAS retail expert Louise Grimmer said.

Dr Grimmer has started a statewide survey to hear from businesses about the strategies and resources they are using to try to survive what she describes as an economic tsunami.

"I want to find out exactly how Tasmanian retail, hospitality and service businesses are coping and the type of support they think will be vital for recovery and survival of their business," she said.

Dr Grimmer said it was clear the retail sector was struggling even before the pandemic.

"A flat economy, minimal wage growth, diminishing discretionary household spending and low levels of consumer confidence were all impacting a sector that was also grappling with large international entrants, changing consumer demands and a rise in online shopping," she said.

"These factors were certainly affecting large retailers, but they were much more challenging for the survival of small local stores.

"Now with COVID-19 added to the mix, Tasmanian retailers are grappling with a health and economic pandemic and having to drastically adapt the way they do business to try and survive."

Deloitte Access Economics recently forecast Tasmanian retail would achieve boom-level turnover growth of 6.9 per cent in the current financial year, but that would slow rapidly to just 0.7 per cent in 2021-22.

Dr Grimmer said the obvious winners in 2020 had been retailers seen as essential, such as supermarkets and pharmacies.

She said the real winners had been bricks and mortar retailers that were also selling successfully online before the crisis.

"COVID-19 has shone a very bright light on how important it is now for retailers to provide consumers with online shopping options," she said.

"The shift over the past few months has been seismic, as many stores scrambled to either start selling online or to drastically improve their existing online operations."

She said her Doing Business During COVID-19 survey of Tasmanian retail, hospitality and service businesses was aimed at helping them chart their way out of 2020 and produce recommendations to government about the best approach to supporting them.

The anonymous online survey can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/doingbusinesscovid19