Consumer spending, TV viewing, retail footfall: 5 interesting stats to start your week

Concerns over US consumer spending post-crisis

Just 4.5% of US consumers say they will have both the ability and confidence to spent on retail goods once lockdown and stay at home orders are lifted, compared to their spending before the crisis began.

By comparison, 22.5% say they will have neither the ability to spend nor the confidence to do so.

In total, only 15.9% say they are confident about spending, with 35.5% neutral and 48.6% unconfident. Just 21.2% say they will be able to spend more, 37.2% the same and 41.6% less.

Source: GlobalData

TV viewing soars as lockdown hits

TV set viewing reached an average 219 minutes a day for the week ending 5 April, down seven minutes on the previous week but almost 40 minutes more than the same week in 2019.

The level of viewing for non-BARB reported channels (such as Netflix) was at 96 minutes a day, again down slightly from the previous week but almost 45 minutes more than the same week a year ago.

Across broadcaster video-on-demand services (such as iPlayer or ITV Hub), total minutes played on smartphones, tablets and computers reached 5.4 billion minutes in March 2020, up from 4.9 billion minutes in the same month in 2019. However, device viewing accounted for just 1.4% of the levels seen on TV in March 2020, down from 1.7% in March 2019.

Source: BARB

Retail footfall slumps to record low

Retail footfall experienced a record decline of 44.7% year on year in March as the mandatory lockdown hit shops hard.

In the three weeks prior to the lockdown on 23 March footfall was down an average of 17.7%, while in the two weeks after it fell by an average of 83.2%.

Footfall to high streets was down 41.8% year on year and shopping centres 43.6%. By comparison, retail parks fared a little better because they have more open spaces and a higher proportion of supermarkets, with footfall down 23.5%.

Source: British Retail Consortium & ShopperTrak

Easter sales slump amid Covid-19 pandemic

UK shoppers spent £160m less in supermarkets this Easter compared to 2019, despite sales rising by 8.9% compared to the same period last year.

Nevertheless, shoppers still celebrate the bank holiday weekend with sales of bulbs and seeds up 128%. There was also a significant increase in sales of beers, wines and spirits – up 29%.

Shoppers also continue to stock up on essentials, with frozen food sales up 32% and ambient grocers 27%. Consumers also looked to treat themselves, with impulse purchases up 18%.

Source: Nielsen

Almost two-thirds of coronavirus content ‘is brand safe’

Around 64% of online content related to the coronavirus outbreak is brand safe, despite many brands putting in place blanket blocks on keyworks such as ‘Covid-19’, ‘coronavirus’, ‘pandemic’ and ‘quarantine’.

In the first two weeks of April, around 1.84 million unique coronavirus-related pages were created. On average, around 86,000 a day are considered brand safe, while 46,000 are ‘unsafe’.

Business and finance has the highest number and proportion of brand safe content, with around 125,000 brand safe pages versus around 60,000 that are unsafe. Around 120,000 pages related to events and attractions are safe and just 20,000 unsafe.

However, in news and politics while 115,000 pages were found to be safe, around 125,000 were deemed unsafe.

Source: GumGum