About the expert: Anna Drobakha, Marketing Director of Avito.
After the removal of quarantine restrictions, the inhabitants of our country are again ready to consume. But now it’s a little different than before.
In early June, shopping centers and non-food stores opened in Moscow. However, consumers are not in a hurry to get there. According to the deputy mayor of the capital for economic policy and property relations Vladimir Yefimov, the number of visitors to shopping centers has reached 50-60% of those before the introduction of quarantine measures.
Many shoppers are not ready to return to malls, according to a May GFK survey. 33% of respondents admitted that they would go to shopping centers and individual stores less even after they open.
Conscious consumption
In March, our countries were given two days to prepare for self-isolation. In this short period of time, we managed to stock up on food, but we could not make all the necessary purchases in the category of non-food products.
As non-grocery retail closed, consumers flocked to online marketplaces to buy quarantined hobbies, electronics, and personal items. Demand for goods in these segments jumped at Avito in May by 51,2%, 47% and 41,3%, respectively, compared to the same period in 2019. Children’s goods also went up: +15,8% year-on-year.
Having purchased computer equipment and tables for remote work, consumers soon returned for sports equipment and equipment. Closed fitness clubs have pushed our countries, for whom a healthy lifestyle has already become familiar, to new ways to play sports and keep fit. First of all, to home workouts.
We are seeing a surge in purchases of sports equipment, from dumbbells (+38% in March compared to February 2020) to treadmills and exercise bikes (+45% in March compared to February 2020).
So we learned to buy things for a limited time in order to use them and then sell them as unnecessary at the end of the isolation.
Not only those who temporarily buy, but also those who are already accustomed to temporarily renting have reoriented themselves. According to the founder of the RENTMANIA service, Lyudmila Bulavkina, their users, who came to the platform for evening dresses, suits and accessories before the crisis, became interested in treadmills and exercise bikes during the isolation period. The company reorganized on the go and agreed with closed fitness clubs to rent out sports equipment.
Economic factors helped to consolidate the “conscious” pattern. On the one hand, falling incomes and an unstable economy have pushed the country’s residents to save money. On the other hand, the change in the exchange rate of the ruble made new imported goods more expensive, reduced their availability and stimulated temporary purchases and further resale.
Total online
Online shopping, which our country did not use for security purposes during quarantine, is becoming a sustainable consumer habit. As already mentioned, now citizens are in no hurry to return to offline, and attention to online services continues to grow. In particular, in May the number of active Avito users increased to 50 million people. The number of current ads on the site has reached 60 million. After the restrictions are lifted, consumers continue to actively buy online and are looking for great deals.
For some categories, this is especially noticeable. For example, back in April, fellow citizens were actively engaged in repairs (not to be lost by the sudden collapse of the weekend), sharply increasing the demand for traditionally offline goods for construction. And since the construction markets were closed, it was necessary to sell and buy concrete mixes, laminate and chandeliers online.
On our platform, we have seen sales in the home, renovation and construction categories skyrocket by 70% in May. And although restrictions are already being actively lifted across the country, online sales of home and construction products continue to grow. our country is entering the traditional construction season, continuing the repairs begun during the lockdown and resuming industrial construction already permitted in many regions.
Delivery for everyone
The availability of everything you can buy, whether it’s a used exercise bike or a gravel machine, has been accompanied by a boom in delivery, the only connection many of us have with the world during lockdown. The demand for this service in the first months of 2020 increased by 27% compared to the same period last year, the fiscal data operator Taxcom reported in mid-May. Most often, consumers used the delivery of products, but the matter was not limited to them.
If earlier our country did not order food at home, expensive or at least new things, now the situation is changing. The widespread development of the service, guaranteed return options and the ability to quickly bring goods from one region to another allow you to safely buy, including used goods. Today, Avito makes about 190 deliveries every month, 93% of which are deliveries between regions.
All of these trends – conscious buying for resale, the general shift to online, and the active development of delivery – together form another noticeable trend. Under such conditions, companies, including small and medium ones, get instant access to a huge consumer audience through sharing platforms. And the platforms themselves are gradually turning into real marketplaces.
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