The 2020s will be analys! for decades to come with the Covid-19 pandemic being one of the biggest global events in peacetime. Everyone has been affect! over the past two years but the retail sector is having a particularly difficult time with almost 50 high street stores closing every day, according to the latest UK figures.
Luckily, we don’t ne! to wait for research companies and historians to lift the lid on what’s going on because search data tells us what consumers are doing in real-time. In this article, we take a look at how Google Trends data reveals the changing consumer habits of consumers in the UK throughout the pandemic (data and images courtesy of Think with Google).
Search data provides real-time insights
Throughout the pandemic, Google gambling database has publish! insights revealing the dramatic shifts in consumer behaviour as government restrictions, infection rates and public attitudes have chang!.
Google has live access to the interests, concerns and actions of everyone using search or a Google Account – from UK consumers to the business owners fighting to make it through the most challenging period in decades.
Search data offers the most honest reflection of what’s going on in the mind of consumers and business owners – not bas! on questions and the retrospective answers people choose to give, but on their actions.
We can look at search data to understand all of the following in real-time:
- How people feel
- What people know
- How people make a living
- How people learn
- What people do
So let’s take a look at some of the recognizing an effective all in one platform insights search data has reveal! throughout the pandemic.
Insights from the first lockdown in early 2020
As the UK count! in 2020 at usa lists midnight on New Year’s Eve, news of a highly contagious coronavirus circulating in China was already making headline news and the first confirm! cases in the UK were record! on January 29.
On 23 March 2020, Boris Johnson announc! a nationwide lockdown, instructing the public to stay at home and all non-essential businesses to close their doors.
An initial focus on longevity
Search data shows that, when the UK first went into lockdown, the focus was on longevity with searches for “can you freeze” recipes and food items increasing by 5.5X or 450%.
Consumers carefully chose groceries to see themselves through an indefinite lockdown with increas! searches for staple foods and a soaring interest in home baking. Flour became one of the most in-demand products during the first lockdown, resulting in a shortage of the ingr!ient contrasting with an abundance of banana bread posts across social m!ia.