Now that most countries are returning back to normal the question rises whether Retail has permanently changed. How would Europeans prefer shopping in the new situation? Have they gotten accustomed to shopping online or have they realized that being able to visit stores is more fun or convenient? We’ve gathered some interesting statistics* regarding people’s shopping behavior pre, during, and post-Covid lockdown. In this article, we’ve summarized the most interesting findings.
*Consumers from The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, UK, Italy and Turkey participated in this research through a survey in the Roamler app. The amount of respondents = 6.654.
[Photo of shopping pre-Covid]
According to our research, 93% of Europeans visit shops occasionally, aside from the regular supermarket visit and other essential stores. During the Covid-19 pandemic, 11% of shoppers did not miss being able to freely visit stores. 45%, however, missed it very much.
The top four reasons not to miss shopping in physical stores were: “enjoying online shopping better” (53%), “thinking shops are overcrowded” (46%), “disliking being bothered by store employees” (33%), and “disliking having to try on things in-store” (29%).
Now that lockdowns have been lifted in most European countries, 85% of shoppers visit (or are planning to visit) physical stores again. 15%, however, says to keep shopping online only, as they’ve gotten used to it during the Covid-19 lockdowns. With 26%, Turkey has most consumers that rather keep shopping online, instead of returning to physical stores.
27% of Europeans stated to be waiting for shops to reopen to buy most of their favourite products (aside from groceries and other essential items). 59%, however, only waited for stores to reopen for some specific items. The top 3 categories which people have waited for the most are Clothes (78%), Shoes (67%) and Furniture and Home decor (34%). Items that people will most likely keep buying online are Books (38%) and Consumer electronics (36%).
What Europeans missed the most from shopping in physical stores, are the “ability to try on items before buying them” (75%) and the “possibility to see and feel the product” (74%).
People shopped less than usual during the pandemic. 44% said to have shopped less because they didn’t need as much while staying at home. 38% were trying to be more careful with spending money as economic times were uncertain. Especially French and Spanish consumers were more careful with spending money for economic reasons.
When shopping in physical stores, 39% of European consumers state to spend more as they are more prone to impulse buying. 41%, however, say to spend the same amount of money both in physical stores and online.
Now that most restrictions are lifted, an impressive 77% of Europeans say they intend to buy more in physical stores as they’d like to support retail after a hard year without much revenue. Most Europeans plan on visiting big retail chains such as H&M and Zara, whereas in the Netherlands and Germany most consumers have expressed a preference for shopping at local, smaller stores.
Even though most Europeans will be vaccinated by the end of the summer, consumers expect stores to adopt anti-Covid measures. Amongst other things, mandatory use of face masks (66%), hand sanitizing stations (58%), and a limited number of shoppers inside the store (49%) are the most popular.
Despite the new arising challenges, Retail will definitely see an increase in footfall in the near future.
Would you like to make sure your stores across Europe are responding to the new expectations of post-Covid consumers? Get in touch with our experts.
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Are you interested in more statistics coming from this research, or would you like to see more facts about one of the participating countries? Great! Please reach out to press@roamler.com, we are happy to share our (free) data with you.
More reports with statistics coming from our communities:
– Consumer Report: Whole Wheat
– Consumer Report: Frozen Fast Food
– Consumer Report: Flowers