retail Search Trends
We are monitoring how UK search users' behaviour is changing in the face of the Coronavirus outbreak. We have used Google Trends to investigate search behaviour across various sectors that impact Propellernet clients.
The data in these charts is updated daily. Commentary will be updated three times a week with the latest update applied to each piece of commentary and dated appropriately.
Top Brand Trends:
It's brands such as Amazon, Argos and Boots that leading the tables for top searches in the retail category.
Retail Category Demand
Panic buying led to shortages in supermarkets and increased demand for online grocery options
The biggest winner in terms of search demand, and has been widely reported has been the Grocery Stores category, which has seen massive growth since the middle of March as consumers prepared for 'lockdown' conditions and prolonged periods of self-isolation.
However, this growth has fallen after the initial surge and has levelled out at nearly double the previous demand.
The order to "Stay At Home" has driven a surge in home improvement searches
With most of the population staying at home, either working from home or furloughed home improvement has seen a huge surge in demand as consumers are using their time at home to do the odd jobs around the house and garden.
Brands, in particular B&Q, Homebase have seen significant rises in search demand as their physical stores had been closed and only offerring online delivery and click and collect services.
From a product perspective, the main focus of this demand has been for paint, while a combination of sunny weather and people being confined to their own homes and gardens means that there was extremely high demand for BBQ search queries.
As restrictions are eased, more people go back to work and more physical stores start to open, we will certainly see some changes in demand across this sector
Alongside home improvement, the move towards working from home means that we saw increased demand for home office items. Desks and office chair searches peaked, while electronic items such as Webcams, Headsets, Headphones have all seen sustained rises in demand since the middle of MArch.
Demand for clothing stores saw huge initial drops but some have recovered
As the situation changed in the UK demand for clothing items fell sharpy as the nation's attention was focussed on essentials such as groceries and healthcare products. After a few weeks, however demand has shifted and demand for clothing retailers is higher than we saw in the same period of 2019.
The lack of physical stores for clothes shopping has seen a huge shift to online channels. While we expect to see some clothing stores opening their doors again over the next couple of months this massive shift to online shopping could be here to stay.