How To Understand Shopper Behaviour During A Pandemic
Covid-19 has changed many things in 2020, and shopper behaviour is high on the list. With the pandemic still hanging like a dark cloud over the bricks-and-mortar retail environment, shoppers’ expectations have shifted. Relaxed in-store browsing has largely given way to a more focused approach. Consumers are now more likely to arrive in-store with a clear shopping agenda, and they expect a higher level of focused service when they do go into a retail outlet. Understanding how shopper behaviour is changing through the Covid-19 crisis is vital for retailers. But capturing these shifts in behaviour while still remaining ‘covid-safe’ has become a challenge, particularly for accompanied shops. In the pre-covid world, physically shadowing a shopper and observing their behaviours during an in-store visit provided many valuable insights into consumer behaviour. However, following a shopper around a store has become socially unacceptable during the pandemic and perceived as being risky. But that doesn’t mean Covid-19 has put an end to this valuable research tool. Here at The Growth Activists, our research team was recently challenged with undertaking pandemic-affected accompanied shops for a client project. So we tapped into that ubiquitous device – the mobile phone. Our researchers connected with shoppers on a mobile-based video call, and asked shoppers to direct their phones at what they were seeing in-store. There was a low barrier to getting research participants on board with this methodology as many had already had the experience of shopping and video-calling a friend or relative to get their opinion on a potential purchase. We found that conducting mobile phone-based accompanied shops provided surprising benefits. In fact, it was so successful that we’re not even considering going back to the traditional in-person approach. How to Understand Shopper Behaviour During a Pandemic Here are five key benefits of conducting mobile phone-based accompanied shops: If your organisation has put qualitative research on hold due to the pandemic, or has not yet trialled new research methodologies, there is good news for you. The innovations in methodology coming out of the pandemic are delivering insights that are better for your business across multiple fronts – faster delivery, greater geographic breadth, cost-effectiveness and improved reliability of insights. There has never been a more important time to be attuned to changing customer behaviours – these insights can make the difference between your brand just surviving or actually thriving in 2020 and beyond. This article was first published in Inside FMCG. Rob Shwetz is a Partner at The Growth Activists, and leads the Research & Insights practice. Rob has 25 years experience across customer and business insights, media, communications and customer experience with organisations including Fairfax, Publicis and Mediacom. To discuss your research strategy Rob can be reached at rob@growthactivists.com
