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Concerns about coronavirus trigger consumers to adjust their buying behaviour profoundly. Recent research from global analytics company Nielsen identifies six consumer behaviour threshold levels that are directly related to the evolution of the outbreak. These insights will help the food industry react to the rapidly developing consumer needs and expectations.
Acknowledging these threshold levels - and especially the stage the country is in at this moment - may help to prepare for changing spending patterns in the short term. Furthermore, it might even predict how consumer habits are shaped in the long run. To conduct the investigation, Nielsen correlated global news events with spending behaviour on for example hygiene, health and pantry products.
(Nielsen, 2020)
Level 1 and 2 - Health and hygiene focus
Most countries have already past level 1, in which risk awareness and focus on health and wellbeing grows, but a minor change in spending is seen. As we are facing an official pandemic and people are increasingly aware of what is happening globally, they will earlier enter level 2 and start stockpiling hygiene and health products, like hand soap and facial masks.
In these first two levels food businesses are advised:
Level 3 - Hoarding begins
When the virus continues to spread locally, people will start to panic-buy and stockpile food and medicine. Consumers will prepare their pantry primarily by buying sanitary items, canned foods (tomatoes, beans, tuna) and dry staples like rice, pasta, and flour.
In this level food businesses are advised:
(Nielsen, 2020)
Level 4 - A boost in online shopping
While more and more people are diagnosed with COVID-19, store visits will decline as people will resort to online shopping. An Ipsos study on Chinese consumer behaviour shows that large store formats, like hypermarkets and shopping centers, suffer the most at this stage. Especially when they cannot compensate with an optimal online shopping experience, e-commerce platforms, and online life apps will benefit at their expense.
Visits to grocery and convenience stores remain stable. This is probably the effect of people avoiding extremely crowded areas and long-distance trips, and finding trust and reassurance in visiting - and thereby also supporting - their local stores.
In this level food businesses are advised to:
Level 5 - Restricted living
When communities are ordered into lockdown, shopping trips are obviously scarce and online fulfillment is limited. As only China has developed through threshold levels 5 and 6, there are no global insights on consumer patterns yet.
However, there are some interesting findings on how the Chinese spent their time at home. Watching TV and household chores are mostly combined with online activities. People engage in e-learning activities and like to watch online movies. Combining this with the insight that 44% spent time cooking and baking, arises the opportunity to share online tutorials and recipes.
Examples are bread-making recipes, cooking from the pantry or DIY birthday cakes. These are ways to maintain presence and engagement with customers. Recently, Burger King France shared how to attempt re-creating the whopper and other of their classics with household ingredients.
Level 6 - The new normal
As far as it can be foreseen what will be the ‘new normal’ in shopping behaviour, there are several assumptions to make. In order for food businesses to effectively respond to post-coronavirus buying patterns, they should acknowledge these three expected trends:
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