12 months on: how has Covid changed our shopping priorities?
By Mark Hook, Global Comms Director & Senior Brightpearl Spokesperson
After a year of on-off restrictions, retailers may be hoping that the reopening of retail next month - a significant milestone on the roadmap to normality - brings with it a spending splurge.
And it’s the case that some 43% of consumers are now buying things online more than normal, with 65% expected to increase online purchasing over the next 12 months, according to exclusive consumer research from Brightpearl.
Saving intensifies post shutdown
However, despite the increases in online shopping habits, consumers are planning to save money as restrictions unwind.
63% of shoppers still say they will need to be ‘very careful’ with their money over the next year.
A quarter have seen their income hit since Covid, and as a result 40% have already cut down on ‘frivolous’ spending, and are much less likely to be splashing the cash.
Travel is the area that consumers plan to spend the most on when they are released from lockdown with 42% expecting to spend more this year than they did pre-Covid.
DIY, a sector which has boomed throughout the pandemic, looks set to be retail’s top performer as we become a generation of ‘DIY-ers’ after a year spending time and money improving our homes.
Four in ten shoppers said they would be spending more on home, garden and DIY products this year than they did pre-Covid, supported by our customer Mad4Tools.com reporting a 250% increase in sales during the pandemic.
On the flip side, it looks like the luxury sector could suffer again next year, with two-thirds of shoppers planning on cutting spending on luxury items such as designer bags, watches and high end jewellery, especially if they can’t take these items out to show.
How we’ll shop is changing
In 2020, those who regularly shopped online jumped from 31% pre-Covid to 48% as store closures forced people to turn to e-commerce to buy what they needed. After a year of shopping this way it seems this behaviour has stuck.
With some insights sure to concern main street retailers, 45% are now buying things online that they only previously bought in-store and 40% of buyers are less likely to shop in-store than they were before Covid.
In our research, we found that 65% of consumers will be buying online more frequently over the next year, with 20% claiming they’ll only shop online within five years, proving that this channel is more powerful than ever.
Amazon still dominates online, and is set to be an even bigger winner over the next 12 months with 55% of consumers saying they will use it more in 2021
Delivery reliability remains a sticking point
Despite the success of online retail since the start of the pandemic 61% of consumers have experienced some problems buying from brands online – with 24% of shoppers having been let down by an online order since the crisis started.
Delivery reliability has created a crisis of confidence amongst some consumers, with 38% of buyers now saying that online deliveries take longer to arrive since the crisis.
34% of consumers say that unreliable delivery has lessened their trust in online shopping since the start of the pandemic.
As a result, it’s not a stretch to say that today’s e-commerce market is fraught with fulfilment issues as more online demand causes costly errors.
As consumers move online, vendors must process increased demand of online orders more quickly - and that can lead to mistakes.
If you’re running out of stock or shipping to the wrong addresses on a regular basis, these mishaps are often down to ineffective workflows or human error that really should be automated to increase speed and accuracy.
There has been a big shift to online post-Covid, but concern over delivery reliability has created a crisis of confidence in some consumers and brands could still suffer or miss out on this digital opportunity if they don’t improve service, especially after the buy button.
As the data shows, on the delivery side of the equation, that simply isn't happening at the level it should be.
The rise of local shopping
One of the main shifts in spending habits since Covid has been the switch to more local shopping and a move away from malls.
Incredibly, 63% of shoppers plan to spend more at local shopping streets than before the pandemic and 60% indicated a willingness to increase spending with independent retailers.
This illustrates that the trend towards localism is here to stay, which is likely to continue to be reinforced by our own remote working habits, which are set to remain for the foreseeable future.
With shopping centres proving less popular, 24% of retailers plan to close physical stores in 2021 in response to plummeting footfall, with two thirds of shoppers saying they won't visit a high street next year
Our data suggests retailers will look to embrace localism, with many already making plans to move stores to high street locations with increasingly strong foot traffic.
In our research, almost one in five said they plan to move stores out of major city centres and into local high streets within the next 12 months.
Retail parks have also proved to be resilient destinations during the pandemic as shoppers felt safer driving to such stores which tend to be more spacious, and this aligns with our research findings which reveal 41% of shoppers also plan to increase their use of Buy Online Pickup In-Store services over the next year.
Some brands may be hesitant to make changes post Covid, looking at the trends above as being temporary blips.
However, 43% of consumers agreed that since the crisis, uncertainty about the future and the economy has made them change their shopping habits drastically and a quarter say they will continue to shop as they did before the crisis.
This indicates that the vast majority plan to retain their new buying behaviours even when things return to normal.
With that in mind, brands must be prepared to adapt to this once in a generation retail transformation. Those that do will see the most success long-term.
