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Understanding how shoppers think and behave over busy holiday shopping periods can be extremely helpful for brands and retail platforms in order to enhance their customer shopping experience, be it online or in-store. With the retail landscape shifting in a pandemic environment, businesses are looking for creative and insightful ways to tap into shopper drivers in order to maximise revenue generation.

Shops and stores have been mostly open across Germany and the UK since the last few months when lockdown measures were relaxed. However, it has not been business as usual for most shop owners. As per a report, there were “no lines” and “no crowds” when an Ikea branch in the Germany city of Cologne opened. According to experts, consumers’ mindsets have changed from a “gain” to a “maintain” mentality during the pandemic. In other words, people are avoiding stepping out of the house unless necessary to lower the risk of catching the virus.

As the pandemic spread around the world has been upturning people’s lives, it also changed the way that people do things. Shopping habits are yet another example of a routine that has changed in a big way. We’ve taken a close look at how these practices have changed in the Middle East, focusing on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt.

From wearing masks and washing our hands more carefully than ever to working from home COVID, has changed our behaviour in dramatic and measurable ways. The virus has also had a versatile impact on consumer behaviour, with large swathes of the world’s population changing their well-worn habits within a few short weeks. Following on from our previous pieces about work-life post lockdown and how the pandemic has affected attitudes towards health, we have taken a deep dive into the altered shopping habits of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa and globally.

Globally 34% of people claim to be shopping online more than they did before the pandemic. Sub Saharan Africa hasn’t followed this trend to the same degree with only 16% of South Africans and 27% of Nigerians shopping online more than before. However, this does not mean that people in these countries are unafraid of the virus. Rather people appear to be buying in bulk and visiting physical stores less often than they did before, complementing this shopping with online buying. Only 15% of worldwide respondents say they have not altered their shopping habits. Nigeria (14%) mirrors this but a greater number of South Africans (21%) have not changed the way they shop. Of the three Sub-Saharan countries in question, the last amount of Kenyans (10%) have not changed the way they shop.