Four months since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic, the world is slowly reopening after an unprecedented lockdown.
The consumer market is changing, with declines in some traditionally strong markets and drastic increases in others. A survey run by Statista highlights that 43% of people are likely to spend more than before on health and hygiene, followed by 40% in household cleaning products and 31% in online shopping for food and drinks. These changes extend into industries including travel, healthcare, fashion, and retail among others.
Over 40% of digital grocery shoppers during the lockdown were new to online grocery shopping prior to the pandemic, according to a Business Insider report. According to emarketer.com, both “food and beverage” and “health, personal care and beauty” were the fastest-growing eCommerce categories prior to the pandemic. Forecast for food and beverage sales were raised from 23.4% to 58.5% and health, personal care and beauty sales from 16.6% to 32.4%. Of new grocery online-shoppers, 68% would continue to shop online in the future, according to another study run by Aki Technologies and TapResearch.
Travel Industry
Strong consumer brands (like Nike), that stayed emotionally connected with their fan-base during the pandemic, have witnessed a lift in online sales. That trend isn’t expected to fade away.