How have consumer needs shifted during lockdown?

During the first UK Covid-19 lockdown, hair clippers sold out within days (we all know someone who bought a pair during lockdown, right?), and looking at the Google trend data pizza ovens saw an unusual surge in interest too… but well, who doesn’t like pizza?

But was that all a one-hit wonder? For some products categories these were a reactive one-off purchase, whereas others (activewear) have remained in relatively high demand.

This is particularly challenging for retailers who need to forecast and predict which products customers are going to be looking for and what volumes to buy. Typically, a retailer will utilise the sales history of a product to predict future sales, however the practice of using ‘last year’ is currently redundant and will be for a few more seasons.

Certain trends that started through the pandemic are showing no signs of slowing down any time soon*. Activewear and loungewear have remained high performing categories with consumers looking for comfort whilst working from home, whereas the demand for hair clippers seem to have returned to pre-lockdown levels.

For retailers to succeed, they will now have to turn to flexible scenario planning more than ever, re-look at their range selection with a focus on comfort and soft fabrics. In addition, retailers should look to diversify and explore ways of repositioning their existing stock whilst investing in data, resilient supply chain and digital capabilities.

*Read more about ‘The great consumer reset’ here

Authors

---

Yota Pavlou

Senior Consultant, CPRD

Yota is part of the Invent CPRD UK team with over 10 years of operational experience in Retail a keen interest in Analytics and Insights

Araba Sagoe

Data Science Consultant, Insight Driven Enterprise

Araba is a Data Science consultant within the AI advisory team of Capgemini Invent.

She is passionate about the consumer goods and retail sectors and enjoys telling data-driven stories with impactful visuals

Emmanuel Ajayi

Data Science Consultant, Insight Driven Enterprise

Emmanuel is passionate about data visualisation and enjoys leveraging the power of data to tell a compelling and  thought provoking story .