DIpil Das
What’s the Story?
This report presents the results of Coresight Research’s latest weekly survey of US consumers, undertaken on February 15. We discuss our questions on shopper behaviors and the impacts of the coronavirus outbreak, including a breakdown of changes in spending on different categories by income group this week. We explore the trends we are seeing from week to week, following previous weekly surveys.What Shoppers Are Buying and Which Retailers They Are Buying From
What Consumers Bought In-Store and Online This week, we saw slight increases in purchases of essentials after a significant decline in those categories last week. In general, this week’s results were consistent with last week’s: just three changes in in-store purchases were greater than the margin of error, while no changes in online purchases were outside the margin of error.- The proportion of consumers that bought health products in-store rose by more than five percentage points this week, even as the proportion that reported buying health products online dropped by nearly the same amount.
- The proportion of consumers that reported buying food or beverages, household products, and toiletries in-store all also increased this week after falling substantially the week prior, although the changes were within the margin of error.
- The proportion of consumers that reported purchasing home-improvement products in-store in the past two weeks fell for the third straight week to 12.2%, nearly 10 percentage points lower than the peak on December 21. The proportion of consumers buying these products online also fell for the third straight week.
- The jump in consumers reporting purchasing cigarettes in stores is hard to explain given prior trends and we may see purchasingfall back to more regular levels in coming weeks.
Figure 1. All Respondents: What They Have Bought In-Store and Online in the Past Two Weeks (% of Respondents) [caption id="attachment_123540" align="aligncenter" width="725"]
Respondents could select multiple options Base: US respondents aged 18+
Source: Coresight Research [/caption] Which Retailers Consumers Purchased Food and Nonfood Products From Since December 21, 2020, we have asked consumers which retailers they bought from in the two-week period preceding the survey, for both food and nonfood products. For food purchases:
- Fully 57.6% of consumers reported buying food from Walmart in the past two weeks. That gives Walmart an advantage of roughly 24 percentage points over Kroger, the next most visited retailer among respondents.
- This week, Kroger was propelled back to its spot as the second most popular retailer for food purchases according to our survey.
- For the first time in our survey, more consumers reported making purchases at Publix and Sam’s Club than at Costco.
- More consumers reported buying nonfood products from Walmart than from Amazon, with our survey recording a rise in shopper numbers at the former and a decline at the latter.
- More than a quarter of respondents reported shopping at Dollar Tree, while 22.4% reported shopping at Dollar General. Both dollar stores overtook Target this week.
- After declining for six straight weeks, the proportion of consumers shopping at Kohl’s finally stopped sliding this week, although its increase was well within the margin of error.
Figure 2. All Respondents: Which Retailers They Have Bought Food Products From and Which Retailers They Have Bought Nonfood Products From in the Past Two Weeks (% of Respondents) [caption id="attachment_123541" align="aligncenter" width="725"]
Respondents could select multiple options Base: US Internet users aged 18+ *Kroger banners include City Market, Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter, King Soopers, Kroger, Ralphs and Smith’s Food & Drug
**Ahold Delhaize banners include Food Lion, Giant, Hannaford and Stop & Shop
***TJX banners include HomeGoods, HomeSense, Marshalls, Sierra and T.J. Maxx
Source: Coresight Research [/caption]
What Shoppers Are Doing and Where They Are Going
Consumers Prioritize Socializing, Remain Wary of Public Places Complementing our questions about purchases in the past two weeks, each week, we ask consumers what activities they have done in the past two weeks. This week, the proportion of respondents rose for eight of the twelve activities we asked about.- After dropping by more than 10 percentage points last week, the proportion of consumers that reported visiting an open-air shopping center rose by the largest margin of any category this week, to 18.0%.
- The proportion of consumers that reported going to the gym or attending a fitness class shrank for the second straight week after peaking for at 10.2% on February 1, the only week where a double-digit share of consumers reported going to fitness locations.
- Consumers continue to prioritize meeting family and friends: 36.2% of consumers reported meeting up with friends or family over the past two weeks, the most common activity consumers reported by nearly 10 percentage points.
Figure 3. All Respondents: What Activities They Have Done in the Past Two Weeks (% of Respondents) [caption id="attachment_123542" align="aligncenter" width="725"]
Respondents could select multiple options Base: US respondents aged 18+
Source: Coresight Research [/caption]
Respondents could select multiple options Base: US respondents aged 18+ Source: Coresight Research More than 86% Avoid Public Places In this week’s survey, the avoidance rate of any type of public area stood at 86.3% versus 84.7% last week and 83.5% two weeks ago. For 10 of the 13 location options provided rates of avoidance increased this week, although some of those changes were within the margin of error.
- After falling substantially over the past two weeks, avoidance of restaurants, bars and coffee shops rose by nearly seven percentage points this week to 61.1%.
- The proportion of consumers avoiding entertainment and leisure venues fell again this week to 37.9%, more than 17 percentage points lower than its value just two weeks ago.
- Avoidance of the workplace fell to just 15.0% this week, the lowest value we have recorded for the location.
- Consumers remain reluctant to visit malls and shops: nearly six out of 10 consumers continue to avoid shopping centers and malls, a slight uptick from last week, while 44.1% of consumers are avoiding shops in general—an increase of more than six percentage points from last week’s value.
Figure 4. All Respondents: Public Places That Respondents Are Currently Avoiding (% of Respondents) [caption id="attachment_123543" align="aligncenter" width="725"]
Respondents could select multiple options Base: US respondents aged 18+
Source: Coresight Research [/caption]
Reviewing Trend Data in Current Purchasing Behavior
What Consumers Are Currently Buying More Of and Less Of The proportion of consumers buying more of any product rose sharply for the second straight week: this week, two-thirds of consumers reported purchasing more of any product. The proportion of consumers reporting buying less of any product again held roughly level at 47.1%.- Buying more in any category and buying less in any category were not mutually exclusive options, so respondents could answer yes to both.
- The ratio of buying less to more for electronics or appliances rose by the largest margin this week, jumping from 1.3 last week to 2.5 this week.
- While the proportion of buying less to more fell for most categories, few changes were large: no ratio fell by more than 0.2, with the cigarettes and tobacco category’s fall from 0.44 to 0.29 representing the sharpest drop of the week.
- Clothing and footwear held the largest ratio of buying less to more at 3.1, up from 2.3 last week and overtaking home furnishings as the category with the highest ratio.
Figure 5. All Respondents: What They Are Currently Buying More/Less Of Due to the Coronavirus Outbreak (% of Respondents) [caption id="attachment_123544" align="aligncenter" width="725"]
Base: US respondents aged 18+ Source: Coresight Research [/caption] Where Consumers Are Cutting Spending, by Income Level High-income consumers were the most likely to report cutting spending on any product: 61.0% of consumers with incomes over $100,000 reported purchasing less of any product, while just 51.0% of consumers with incomes between $50,000 and $99,999 and 39.0% of consumers with incomes under $50,000, reported the same. This is likely to reflect more affluent consumers making more discretionary purchases that can easily be cut back.
- None of the consumers we surveyed with incomes over $100,000 reported spending less on food or nonalcoholic beverages, while about 5% of consumers with incomes under $100,000 reported spending less.
- High-income consumers were far more likely to report purchasing less clothing, footwear or fashion accessories, reflecting that the decline in apparel spending is mostly due to consumers’ reduced need for clothing to wear outside the house rather than due to an inability to spend.
- Consumers with incomes under $50,000 were twice as likely as those with incomes above $100,000 to be purchasing fewer electronics or appliances.
Figure 6. All Respondents: What They Are Currently Buying Less Of Due to the Coronavirus Outbreak, Selected Categories, by Household Income (% of Respondents) [caption id="attachment_123548" align="aligncenter" width="725"]
Base: US respondents aged 18+ Source: Coresight Research [/caption]
What We Think
This week, we saw slight increases in consumers purchasing more essentials but little drastic change in purchasing habits, as consumers continue to be reluctant to shop for non-essentials in stores. While virus cases continue to decrease, consumers remain wary of visiting public places. While a good portion of all consumers reported cutting back on spending on certain products, we found that high-income consumers were the most likely to report spending less on any item due to the pandemic; this reflects the higher levels of discretionary spend among more affluent groups. Our recurring weekly questions indicated the following:- Avoidance of Public Places:T he proportion of consumers avoiding public places of any kind rose to more than 86% this week, while just 15.0% of consumers reported going to an indoor shopping center in the past two weeks, again signaling that a return to normal consumer behavior remains a long way off. Roughly six in 10 consumers continue to avoid shopping centers and malls, directing spending online to avoid potentially hazardous physical shopping trips.
- In-Store Shopping: While large portions of consumers continue to buy food and other essentials in-store, they remain reluctant to purchase discretionary products in-store. For example, levels of apparel purchases remain higher online than in-store, while less than one in five consumers reported going to an outdoor shopping center in the past two weeks.
- Where Consumers Are Shopping: Consumers flocked to bargain retailers in the most recent survey period. Dollar stores saw an increase in shoppers for nonfood products, while Walmart was the most popular retailer for nonfood product shopping . Even in the wake of the most recent round of stimulus payments, consumers are clearly still cost-conscious in their shopping habits.