Understanding The Covid-19 Effect On Online Shopping Behavior
By: Bruce G. Kreeger
Online shopping has grown as a popular modern channel for consumers in recent years, fueled by high internet promotions, and social media plays a vital role in increasing it. As a result of the pandemic, people are working remotely in many countries, which increases their screen viewing time. They’re more active on hanging platforms and shopping websites to fulfill their need to window shop, which often results in buying something over the internet.
This pandemic has also pushed many people into hard financial times. This results in a cause-and-effect harmony of bulk buying limited buying of necessities only, which has helped many brands grow. Due to the closure of many non-essential businesses during the pandemic, many people have shifted to online shopping to meet both ends.
This article is primarily focused on how the pandemic affects the shopping behavior of people.
Understanding Panic Buying And Coronavirus :
As soon as the news spread like a fire in a Jungle, people started to panic and became over conscious of their perceived need. This affected small and large stores as they began the enormous chore of restocking daily requirements to keep them from being out of stock for everyday needs.
As the demand increased, all Tom and Harry stores and online sellers started competing to have enough stock and provide items with higher prices than usual.
Human response is understandable as every person acts differently. During the pandemic, many people worried about restocking.
Men’s And Women’s Shopping Behaviors Vary
For example, while more women (71 percent) than men (60 percent) reported being “worried about the coronavirus,” nearly half of men surveyed (47 percent) said it had impacted their purchase decisions, versus 41 percent of women. Further, 38 percent of men compared to 33 percent of women agreed that it had affected where and how they shop. (Source Forbes).
With analysis of recent surveys the following things can be concluded :
1) More men gravitated toward Grocery Shopping.
2) The number of male shoppers increased rather than females.
3) Males are avoiding more interaction in an in-store environment. Men are more worried about their children and buying precautionary stuff advised for COVID.
Changes In Revenue Across Ecommerce:
COVID-19 helped to increase e-commerce business over many other new firms, customers, and a pool of products. Due to this, when advised to stay home and not contact people, the emerging eCommerce business trend provides access to various products while sitting at home.
Product Categories Shifting During COVID-19
Due to the pandemic being global, shopping priorities and product categories have changed.
People prefer gloves and masks, as opposed to junk food. Many have shifted to increase immunity, from buying unnecessary snacks to necessary medication to keep at home for any immediate health situation.
Due to change and priority, the following shopping categories are highly effective with a mix and match of profit and loss:
1. Health And Safety Products
Considering the pandemic, empty shelves of this category or high prices for everyday medication products, one can quickly analyze their high demand and shortage of supply.
2. Shelf-Stable Goods
Goods that can easily be stored for long-term use or frozen are higher in demand as people have planned for the long-term quarantine. The products include dry milk snacks, fruits, beans.
3. Digital Streaming
Due to the lockdown, people have no option other than to sit at home, and their screen time has increased due to online streaming of series, podcasts, and documentaries. Moreover, subscriptions of streaming services such as Netflix, Prime, Sony Live, Hulu, Disney, and many more have seen a massive change in the number of subscriptions which highly affected the revenue of this industry.
4. Luxury Goods
As the above industries are making a good revenue, luxury services are facing an increased loss, including restaurants, shopping plazas, and cinemas are not doing well. The lockdown has hit them hard.
5. Fashion And Apparel
As discussed above, with the changes in shopping behavior and preferences, buyers are no more interested in in-house shopping. Many retailers have to lock down their shops and face the highest loss ever.
Even the online fashion and apparel market has survived a lot as people spend more money on daily necessities and restocking of food and beverages than on clothing.
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