Even post-pandemic, consumers embrace a digital-first world

It all started a year ago. Remember? There came a scary event that’s changed nearly everything about how we live, work, play — and pay for the pleasure. PYMNTS has tracked the destructive path of COVID through the business world, surveying nearly 22,000 U.S. consumers in the process.

Looking at a census-balanced sample of nearly 2,000 U.S. adults to see trends in lasting consumer sentiments about the digital shift and everything after, what jumps out is the profound and extensive degree of digital transformation of entire societies, and how that’s OK with a great many people.

Per the new report, 62 percent of consumers are grocery shopping in stores less than they did pre-COVID and “do not want to do so as much as they did before the pandemic,” and for remote workers it’s much the same story. “Seventy-nine percent of remote workers say they want do not want to go back to working at physical workplaces, apparently preferring the company of family, roommates and pets to commuting to work every day,” per the report.

Clearly, the digital shift is staying with us, even as we reemerge into the physical world.

Fascinating lifestyle patterns have formed out of necessity, with touchless digital shopping options that reduced the risk of infection, bringing brightness to a dark picture.

The report finds that 38 percent of all consumers have shifted from dining in restaurants to ordering food on their mobile phones for pickup, and 77 percent who shifted to mobile order-ahead apps will stay with that mode of dining post-pandemic.

“Data shows that 26 percent of consumers report using aggregators like Uber Eats, Grubhub and DoorDash more now than they did before the pandemic began. Eighty percent of them say they intend to keep using aggregators at least as often as they do now even after the pandemic has subsided.”

There’s good reason for these patterns to stick, as people are using digital tools and platforms to manage more aspects of their lives, giving a newfound sense of freedom when we need it.

“One of the reasons that digital channels have helped consumers clear their schedules is that they enable them to place purchases anytime, and such shoppers can use a mix of digital and brick-and-mortar channels for nearly all of the products they purchase. The extent to which they use physical channels, digital channels or both nevertheless depends on the type of products they are buying at any given time,” per the report.

We all listened, watched and waited for most of 2020. Then the vaccines started arriving. That was the sign many millions were waiting for, and it shows up in the numbers.

“Consumers see the light at the end of the tunnel now that vaccines are more widely available. Access to vaccines and interest in getting vaccinated are at an all-time high in the U.S., as 66 percent of U.S. consumers are either vaccinated or plan to get vaccinated,” the study states. “Twenty-eight percent of the adult population have already received at least one vaccination shot, and 53 percent are either vaccinated or likely to get vaccinated when they become eligible. This is up from just 38 percent of consumers who had already been vaccinated or planned to get vaccinated back in November, when the U.S. vaccine rollout kicked off.”

Immunization makes people feel safer — a fact that’s driving a lot of optimism now.

Source: PYMNTS.com