The drastic increases in online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic are well documented. To meet social distancing advice from governments worldwide we are seeing a global upturn in shopping online, across all categories and some more than others – take a look at this excellent synopsis of the top 100 fastest growing categories at the moment from Stackline. 

What is not well documented however, is how basket compositions are changing drastically. At ChannelSight, looking at our own data we have noticed some ‘interesting’ product combinations that we would not usually see in regular online shopping behaviour. 

In our infographic below, we can see that some baskets and product combos have direct relevance to each other such as coffee and a blender, the type of behaviour we see all the time as we analyse basket composition across our data. On the other hand, we are seeing lots of really unusual combinations at the moment. Take the combination of the power bank battery and Maggi Pasta, a chair and noodles. This data aligns with reports of changing consumer behaviour influenced by the pandemic. We are seeing more purchases of ‘work from home’ equipment and a rise in home appliances, such as breadmakers (Stackline report that breadmakers are the second highest category at the moment in terms of increases in purchases). 

In other ChannelSight data, which we’ll share in our next blog we are seeing a sharp increase in conversion rates across retailers which alludes to panic buying behaviours, which could also be a contributory factor in these unusual basket compositions. As they say, and I think we would all agree, you need your Chocolate and Beard trimmers, along with Chobani Yoghurt especially more so, when you are stuck at home 🙂

Want to understand your consumers better?

ChannelSight’s brand performance team is providing updated insights into the impact of COVID-19 on consumer behaviour, brands and retailers. If you would like more information and insights, please feel free to reach out to us here.