After nearly two years of disruption, Covid-19 has changed how we shop for ever. It has altered not only what we buy, but how we buy it. Big purchases involve clicks, not shopping trips, and remote working has turned the home interiors market into the new fast fashion.
It has also signalled the end of overwhelming choice for consumers, analysts say, as gaps on shelves and long delivery times for items such as cars and sofas become a frustrating fact of life.
Lifestyle changes due to health or environmental concerns are also helping new services get off the ground. Investors are pouring billions into rapid grocery delivery, while buying secondhand clothes and renting furniture is entering the mainstream. On high streets, cheaper rents are starting to attract independent stores.
Here is a look at some of the big changes taking place.
Grocery shopping
The pandemic has caused major upheaval in the UK’s £212bn grocery industry. The return of the weekly shop during the strictest periods of lockdown looked as though it had saved the big supermarkets from a midlife crisis, only for an army of rapid grocery delivery firms, such as Getir, Gorillas and Jiffy, to emerge with the promise of delivering your groceries in less than half an hour.
The IGD, the trade body for the food and consumer goods industry, says this so-called quick commerce has “exploded” on to the scene and is now a “channel in its own right”. It estimates 13% of UK shoppers now use these services, with sales hitting £1.4bn this year and on track to double within five.
Bryan Roberts, an analyst at Shopfloor Insights, says the health crisis has created the kind of market conditions where people are “willing to pay a delivery fee for a 20-quid, 15-minute, delivery experience”, although he adds: “Time will tell if these models are going to be sustainable.”
The expanded online services offered by the big chains have also won millions of new customers during the pandemic, but with inflation running at a 10-year high, the sands are shifting again, with discounters such as Aldi and Lidl the likely winners in the coming months as Britons seek out cheaper stores.
There may be more ways to shop these days, but the supply chain problems in the background have prompted the major grocery brands to take a leaf out the discounters’ book and reduce their ranges to become more efficient.
Richard Wilding, professor of supply chain strategy at Cranfield School of Management, says that …….
