With the entry into Phase 2, the purchases of Italians in the physical stores. Since May 4, there have been signs of growth in numerous product sectors, all in the DIY stores, whose sales have returned to almost pre-Covid-19 levels, but also in bookstores, pet stores and for house cleaning, in stores for children and consumer electronics. Purchases in the GDO, which in fact has never closed in this period and which sees a shopping trend on the rise compared to the last week of lockdown. Finally, the Italians return to shopping on Saturday: Saturday 9 May, in fact, there was an increase in purchases of + 42% compared to the rest of the week.
This is what emerges from the data collected by Stocard, the wallet application that allows you to digitize all loyalty cards in your smartphone, in the week between 4 and 11 May. The survey conducted by the Stocard Observatory assessed the behavior of over 7.7 million registered users of the app and focused on the purchases of Italians in the first week of Phase 2 and in the last week of lockdown (April 27 - May 3 ).
E-commerce: 2 million novices
But the main change in the purchasing behavior of Italians during the Coronavirus emergency concerns online shopping. Quarantine - confirm Netcomm data - has tripled new online consumers in Italy between January and May.
In just one month, since the beginning of the health crisis, there has been a 10-year evolutionary leap to digital: the purchasing habits and behaviors of Italian consumers have shifted in favor of e-commerce, which has guaranteed continuity of service for numerous businesses and for citizens. From the beginning of 2020 to today, 2 million new online consumers in Italy (29 million in all), 1.3 million of which, according to Netcomm estimates, are attributable to the impact of the Covid-19 health emergency . In the same months of last year (from January and May 2019), in fact, there were 700,000 new consumers: this is the organic growth that the e-commerce market expected even in the first 4 months of 2020, if the crisis of the Coronavirus and the resulting lockdown.
Food, drugs and animals
E-commerce is the sector that will grow the most (up to + 55%) worldwide with the impact of Covid-19, followed by modern food retail (up to + 23%) and wholesale of pharmaceutical products (up to + 15%). Several sectors, such as the fashion & lifestyle sector, have also been hit harder than others online, but the 77% of online merchants has stated that it has acquired new customers during this phase of health emergency.
From the point of view of sales on the web, there was a real surge in the sectors that until a few weeks ago were considered emerging: to record the greatest increase, from late February to mid-April, is in fact the pet care (+ 154%); followed by fresh and packaged foods (+ 130%); products for the home care (+ 126%) and of the person (+93). Not only food supply for humans and hygiene for personal care and housing, therefore: Italians shop on the web also to meet the needs of their pets, faithful quarantine companions for millions of people.
Giulia Cimpanelli
