What Do We Learn from the Pandemic’s Effects on the Customer Path-to-Purchase?
When the customer’s shopping journey is not usual, what can we observe from these past few weeks?
In the midst of uncertainties in the past week about virus situations all over the world, many of us feel the same way as a human being, anxious. “We are all in this together,” has probably been the most common phrase I have heard from my friends and the social and the most often used phrase I have been saying to many people this past week too.
As a consumer, each of us has been highly concerned about our surviving condition when commodities are not conveniently purchased. Then as a marketer, where the world has turned upside down in this chaos, there are changes in the way consumer’s purchasing journey in which no usual customer path model could fully explain this. Let’s explore some observations we learn from these pandemics.
The Customer Path-to-Purchase under the normal circumstance
Traditionally, marketers had long been used to the linear funnel, starting from the wider reach, awareness, narrowing down to familiarity, consideration, purchase and loyalty. According to McKinsey’s consumer path model, the approach to explain was that consumers “methodically reduce the number and move through the funnel” then finally make the decision to go with one brand they purchase.
With the evaluation of expanding market and product options, digital channels, and consumer’s knowledge itself over time, the straight-line model was not able to perfectly explain the journey anymore. There was a revision in the model by McKinsey, introducing the circular journey model. It consists of four primary phases: initial consideration; active evaluation, closure and postpurchase. It also reflects the shift from one-way communication (push) — from marketers to consumers — toward a two-way conversation. Now every communication matters as it affects the whole unending cycle of purchase and evaluation. The initial consideration set is more important than ever as consumers constantly form their options based on the accumulated impressions, resulting from all the touchpoints, in our everyday environment or on our hands.
What Happened to the Customer Shopping Journey in the age of COVID-19?
However, we are now experiencing a phenomenon that any single consumer journey model could fully explain. We are introduced to a worldwide crisis, the pandemic. From the marketing perspective, this plays a big part as our economical force. For example, in New York, where I currently live right now, the state announced that all schools, restaurants and bars to be closed earlier this week in attempts to flatten the curve of the spread. Also, a few days before that, we had encountered the forward messages about the possibility of the closing and shutting down New York, resulting in confusion and panic among all consumers.
As a marketer, I could observe two main shopping trends when customers do not behave as usual and how we can learn from this.
Panic Buying
When consumers hear the news about closing the main supply like restaurants, one of the first things they do is to go straight to the grocery stores and ‘stock up.’ After receiving the text messages about closing stores, some of my friends decided to join the crowd to purchase some necessary items to survive. Apparently this was what they found at the store.
Forget all the customer path-to-purchase model, as now consumers are left with options of what they could buy on the shelves, or the (almost) empty shelves. Hoarding shoppers were all over the place. The New York Times reported ‘Panicked Shoppers Empty Shelves as Anxiety Rises’ where there was nothing left to buy especially bottled water, bread, canned and frozen foods and most importantly, toilet paper! It was the war among shoppers that everything happened fast all at once and they did not even have time going through the typical process of evaluating options anymore.
Online shopping
Online shopping has never been this critical to our lives. When in-store are empty and people are afraid to go out, they turn online. Similarweb reported in their whitepaper the change in traffics of grocery delivery platforms. Sameday.costco.com increased by 140%, Grocery.walmart.com at 37% and Instacart.com with a rise of 30%. Also, the biggest e-commerce like Amazon to Hire 100,000 Warehouse and Delivery Workers Amid virus Shutdowns, reported by The Wall Street Journal. This is the chance for us to take some time and appreciate the invention of e-commerce.
The Final Thoughts
In this crisis we are facing together, we may have also found some lights. We are inevitably facing another disruption which leads us to realize that technology was initially created to be a kind of helping tool for humans.
For the online battlefield, it has proven that e-commerce will continue to skyrocket. Marketers have the chance to revisit the customer’s shopping journey and activate the online forces to help influence their decisions either through advertising, retargeting, reviews and word-of-mouth.
Lesson learned from the story of panicky shoppers, to prevent the sales loss for supply-side and opportunity loss for demand-side, brands, manufacturers and retailers can ensure good management of the demand and supply. The operation to efficiently replenish along with the control in quota buying should be implemented.
Lastly, for all of us, we should try to think humanly and reasonably. Putting aside our panic attack, only dine-in restaurants are closed while take out and delivery are still our options. Plus the grocery stores as an essential business still remain open. We can purchase what’s enough for us for a couple of days or a week, then manage to make another quick grocery run later. We can be responsible and do our parts so that all of us survive this together.
