So many aisles, so little time; how is shopper behavior changing with the constant changes of the COVID-19 pandemic?
It has now been 18 months since COVID-19 changed the world. The pandemic transformed the nature of retail almost instantly, causing all people, regardless of age and income, to rethink their shopping habits. Everyone who shopped in a brick-and-mortar store in the early days of COVID still remembers shoppers piling up products in their carts and emptying every shelf they could find (toilet paper shortage, anyone?).
By now, we’ve all been through at least two or three waves of the pandemic (depending on where you live). With vaccination rates increasing, we’ve seen retailers going back to some semblance of normalcy: the removal of mask mandates, the lifting of occupancy restrictions, and the elimination of social distancing requirements. But what is the current situation in terms of in-store shopper behavior? Are we back to normal? Are shoppers acting the way they did pre-COVID?
In short, no; however, their new “normal” is still pretty stable.
Traffic is not back to normal; however, customer basket size has increased
When COVID hit, stores that remained open saw a huge drop in traffic, sometimes declining as much as -50% when compared to pre-COVID. The traffic eventually increased during the summer of 2020 and through 2021, but even at its peak, traffic is still 10 to 20% lower than pre-COVID. It’s not all bad news, however. This drop in traffic was made up for by bigger basket sizes. Customers put more thought into their trips and ended up leaving with more merchandise.
Surprisingly enough, this pantry loading behavior has remained, despite traffic levels continuing to increase. Shoppers tend to visit more departments, and their visits are becoming longer and longer. Fresh and Frozen Food departments have seen a +20% rise in frequentation. These increases can be seen the most in Frozen and Salted Grocery, as customers are more likely to stockpile these products at home. Oddly enough, there has also been a rise in frozen food-adjacent products, such as freezers and refrigerators.
These changes in traffic have been consistent over the last few months. This suggests that shoppers have reached a new equilibrium, and their current patterns may be the norm for the foreseeable future.
In-aisle promotions have seen an increase in engagement
During the first phase of the pandemic, there was a lack of engagement with promotional touchpoints as shoppers were doing very efficient shopping trips – customers did not stop to appreciate the discounts. In some countries, in-store promotions had completely ceased. However, over the last few weeks, we’ve observed an increase in shopper engagement during weeks when promotions are held, especially with products located in the aisles versus those located in spaces traditionally reserved for promotions (like Stackouts and endcaps). This suggests two things:
New customer behavior patterns mean lots of new opportunities
It’s worth mentioning that while ecommerce sales rose substantially during the first few months of the pandemic, we now see a return to traditional offline shopping. As ecommerce growth is likely to continue, an omnichannel value proposal (combining offline and online) is the winning formula, now more than ever. But back to the store doesn’t mean back to normal. Traffic remains down, trips have become longer, and customer journeys have become more efficient, resulting in less time for discovery. Promotion engagement is rising, suggesting that a clear value-for-money strategy is very important. Will it last? There’s no way to truly say; however, even if it’s not forever, the current stable numbers suggest it will be at least for a while.
The statements made in this article are done so with the backing of data from Amoobi, a customer-tracking analytics company that monitors shopper behavior in retail environments. The data is generalized from several global projects in grocery and other industries.