Why brands need to focus on changes in consumer behavior post-pandemic
By Zion Rufus
Some consumer trends have been globally accelerated as the Pandemic initiated some of the most dramatic changes to human behavior the world has ever seen. While some new trends emerged unexpectedly, some phased-out, and the old ones evolved rapidly.
So far, there has been a significant variance in how consumers respond to the crisis and adapt to the ‘New Normal’, which means even after the pandemic, a lot of pandemic-induced changes will remain and continue to strengthen. So what new global trends are we expected to see over the next few months?
Across the globe, consumers have responded to the Covid-sponsored disruptions to normal consumer behaviors; shopping behaviors have tilted almost fully towards e-commerce; business meetings, school, family meetings, and conferences have all gone virtual; leisure travel and tourism have dropped drastically. Consumers have also expressed high-intents to incorporate these behaviors moving forward.
Conscious consumerism will persist long after the pandemic, such as working from home, spending behaviors, sustainability, DIY’s, ethical consumerism, product transparency, and functional buying.
Spending behaviors have also changed across all categories as consumers intend to continue shifting their spending to essentials, while cutting back on most discretionary categories. Where a fair category of consumers are becoming price sensitive as a result of the recession caused by the pandemic; value, availability, convenience, quality, purpose, and experience still remains the primary influence to changes in consumer behavior. When we project these into the future, we can catch a glimpse of the new trends to look out for.
Sustainable economy, sustainable packaging, and ethical consumption is also a global trend that has come to stay. The shift towards a more sustainable economy has kicked off from both the top and the bottom of the consumption pyramid. Consumers are gearing towards more sustainability-inclined brands and Companies are in-turn responding.
DIY trends have also permitted a large consumer block to opt for do-it-yourself mediums to learn new ways to solve old problems in order to cut back on certain utility-spend; some are also finding product substitutes and developing new skills that allow them to cut discretionary spending while still leveraging these new channels.
Digital is the new normal and the ‘rapidly evolving’ normal. Entirely new forms of online shopping have burst onto the scene during the pandemic. The flight to the digital platform, and online customer base and penetration have reached an all-time high over the past few months in terms of marketing, advertising, brand engagement, promotion, patronage, product launching, e-commerce, virtual learning, virtual conferencing; compared to what it was prior to the pandemic.
However, in-person shopping will continue to shrink drastically. More and more categories that were once thought to be impervious to online shopping has gradually made successful transitions to eCommerce. Brands will need to focus on improving the shopping experience and value for consumers by understanding new consumer behavior trends and response patterns through personalizing their outreach by leveraging data, social media, new technology and channels.
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