Our partners at Kantar Worldpanel have released a very interesting article on recent changes to shopper habits, which we would love to share with you!
The pandemic has now been making its mark on our lives for over 12 months and has completely changed the way we shop.
Various hospitality restrictions mean that we’ve eaten an extra seven billion meals at home since spring 2020. Office tea rounds meanwhile were replaced by brews in our own kitchens and we drank an additional two billion cups of tea in the house this year.
Overall, shoppers have spent £15.2 billion more on groceries during the pandemic – that’s around £4,800 per household on average, an increase of £500 compared with normal times.
Nearly a quarter of households bought groceries online during the past 12 months, making the most of home deliveries especially to get hold of bulkier goods like canned foods, breakfast cereals and soft drinks.
It’s been an extraordinary twelve months for online and three million tonnes of food alone have been delivered to people’s homes over the past year. It’s a habit that seems to be sticking among British consumers and internet orders now make up an average of 65% of grocery spending each month for people who do shop online.
One year on since the first COVID-19 cases were detected in Britain, clear patterns remain in shopping habits by different age demographics. People under 28, who are typically more open to visiting physical shops, have increased spending in larger physical stores by 12%. Over-45s, on the other hand, have cut back spend in bigger supermarkets by 1%, and the rapid growth of online shopping, which hit a record share of 14.0% this month, is being led by the oldest demographics. Retired households have boosted their online spend by a staggering 229% compared with January 2020. Older people are clearly getting more comfortable and proficient at ordering online and they now make up 28% of the 6.4 million who used online services in Great Britain this month.
In terms of the grocery market itself, we will start to see year-on-year decline following this week’s anniversary of the first national lockdown. Sales will be measured against last year’s record spending and comparisons will be tough against the heights of 2020 when panic buying took hold of the population and demand for groceries is also likely to subside as the hospitality sector gradually re-opens
