MILLENNIAL KEY LEARNINGS — June 11, 2020
Published in
2 min readJun 11, 2020
Covid-19: Changing purchasing trends
- Consumer behaviour in India is radically changing due to COVID-19 with 60% of buyers in the country believing that the pandemic would alter the way they shop. (EY Survey)
- The concerns around the contagious virus and the need for social distancing has resulted in a spike in online purchases, specifically from the younger generations. However, baby boomers still remain reluctant to trust ecommerce platforms.
- Closely monitoring the current scenario, there have been reports suggesting that all organizations should practice permanent safety measures in offices and on shop floors, reorganise their portfolios, and most importantly create and expand relationships with third-party e-commerce platforms.
- To stay relevant and be accessible during this time, even the frontline ‘Kirana’ stores have witnessed a similar trend with the digital transformation, which’s been underway since a few years now, but the current crisis accelerated the process in the past three months, bringing more and more kiranas online.
- A general sentiment indicates that a large percentage of the digitally connected population in India includes millennials and Gen Z, and constitute the largest consumer segment contributing to the growth of ecommerce platforms, ‘sizing in excess of 200 million and the primary focus of every B2C consumption oriented company (e.g. Amazon, Croma, Cult).’
- According to experts in the retail business, “Most of the new-age brands are targeting the urban millennials who have shown strong resilience to the COVID situation and several of our portfolio companies are tracking revenues back to pre-COVID levels…We believe that with the significant shift in consumer buying behaviour to more digital transactions because of COVID-19 and the resultant lockdown, the opportunity will become even more exciting. We also believe that new categories in wellness, immunity and ‘experiences at home’ will emerge strongly during and post-COVID.”
- The strong boost received by digital platforms as a result of the pandemic might speed up the government’s efforts towards creating a trillion-dollar digital economy by 2025.
