Even before the enforced social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic closed shopping centers across the world, the public was shifting to making more socially aware purchases and shopping in short online sessions rather than spending days at the mall.

Back in January, when COVID-19 was still a tiny blip on the news radar, IBM and the National Retail Federation conducted a study on global consumer trends. The results showed the trend toward conscious, sustainable shopping rather than impulse buys.

“Of the 19,000 people that we surveyed, 40% of them said that they were making decisions that were purpose-driven compared to 41% that make decisions that were convenient,” said Luq Niazi (pictured), IBM global managing director of consumer industries at IBM Corp. “The other big thing that we saw was shopping in micro moments; increased digital shopping anytime, anywhere.”

Niazi spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. They discussed how COVID-19 has affected global consumer trends and how the market is adjusting to keep pace. (* Disclosure below.)

Panic buying shifts into conscious consumerism

The big news at the start of the pandemic was the mass purchase of essential items, such as cleaning products, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer. Although the panic has calmed, nonessential items are still being left off the shopping list as people tighten their belts in preparation for an economic downturn.

Spending on luxury items has plummeted, according to Niazi. “Discretionary trend, fashion, apparel, luxury [goods]; the drop in those volumes are very, very significant,” he stated.

As would be expected, online retailers are the ones benefiting. Prior to the pandemic, about 3% of the U.S. population shopped online. “That has shifted to 43% during this period,” Niazi said. “It’s accelerated the type of purchases that people are doing in a digital context.” 

And social distancing rules have demanded a new delivery model, even for businesses maintaining a physical store presence. “There’s much more kind of buy online, pick up in … [the] distribution center or pick up at the car park,” Niazi explained.

Maintaining safe distancing inside retail outlets is a change that Niazi anticipates will become permanent policy. There will be “a different configuration and application of technology in-store to keep monitoring both the safety of the employees and the safety of the customers, but also to make sure that occupancy levels are appropriate,” he said. “So big shifts to digital, big shifts to different types of delivery models, big shifts to safety-related technology.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. Neither IBM, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE