Rethinking the future of shopping

The behaviour displayed by shoppers has changed rapidly over the last three years. Global consumer behaviour was evolving to live by the micro-moments three years ago.

Consumers already expressed their desire to know more about a product or service before purchasing. PwC's Global Consumers Insights Survey 2018 identified some of these evolving behaviours and how the increase in smartphone and internet usage shaped those patterns.

The pandemic has rapidly changed consumer behaviour in the last two years.  Most countries issued stay-at-home orders for a significant duration of 2020, resulting in scaled-down operations of retail stores. At the same time, online purchasing of goods and services increased significantly.

To understand this rapidly changing consumer behaviour, PwC conducted multiple pulse surveys in 2021 and generated insights from them.

The survey conducted between July–December 2021 revealed some of the most recent behavioural changes along with the optimism among shoppers despite headwinds in many economies and the fear of another variant of the virus emerging. The survey covered 9,370 individuals spread across 26 countries.

The increase in the number of vaccinated individuals improved the optimism to a great extent. Amongst those who were surveyed, 66 per cent of the partially or fully vaccinated individuals as well as 43 per cent of the unvaccinated individuals expressed their optimism about the future.

The option of flexible working has also boosted consumer optimism. They now prefer a hybrid model of working compared to only work from home or offices/locations. This optimism about the future is also related to consumer willingness to spend more in the coming months.

The historic rise of smartphone usage for shopping is another notable development.

As per the PwC survey, 41 per cent of the respondents said that they shop daily or weekly using their mobiles or smartphones compared to 39 per cent six months ago and 12 per cent five years ago. This has been a rising trend over the last five years and is expected to continue, particularly fuelled by smartphone proliferation and data connectivity in emerging countries like Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and others.

For example, 53 per cent of the respondents from India said that they shop daily or weekly using their mobiles or smartphones. The number went up to 69 per cent for the individuals surveyed in Vietnam.

The number of people resuming their visits to physical stores is gradually increasing. Lockdowns and the fear of infection had reduced physical store visits significantly. As per the PwC survey, 47 per cent of the respondents said that they visit physical stores every week. 

Earlier, cash-affluent shoppers lacking time to physically visit stores started using mobile phones and online channels for shopping. Online shopping gradually found favour with more people as it saved time and increased convenience.

The pandemic compelled a significant section of shoppers across demography to opt for online shopping. At the same time, the stay-at-home restrictions and work from home options allowed cash-affluent consumers to become time-affluent as well. This has resulted in their willingness to know more about the products and services that they are buying today. 

What emerged as a micro-moment for consumers to know more about a product or service better before purchasing/availing has now been extended to multiple such micro-moments as they are spending a significant amount of time to know more about products and services. Additionally, consumers are increasingly preferring purchasing sustainable products and services.

Their concerns about the environmental, social and governance aspects of production processes are becoming stronger and manufacturers and retailers need to become more serious about this trend. Consumers, particularly white-collared and affluent workers, are increasingly preferring to describe themselves as eco-friendly.

Such behavioural change in consumers is going to have a dual effect on businesses in Bangladesh. Retailers, especially the online ones, need to start sharing information more transparently with their consumers. Modernising their existing technology infrastructure will enable retailers to efficiently collect data from multiple sources, including the origins of production, and meaningfully disseminate that data to consumers as and when they demand for it.

Many buying decisions will be influenced by this transformation and depend on how successfully retailers adopt modern technologies to address this need.

Secondly, a sector such as apparel manufacturing, which is one of the country's leading export sectors, must review and reconfigure its production process to address the preferences of overseas consumers. Such a sector will also have to adopt technology and innovate sustainable processes to ensure that it adopts sustainable manufacturing.

The behaviour of shoppers is going to evolve rapidly worldwide in future. Retailers must rethink and reconfigure their business and operational strategy to address this requirement with speed and agility.

The writer is a partner at PwC. Views are personal.