Continued Shifts in Online Retail Interest During Coronavirus Pandemic

The latest insights from Comscore show that while certain retail categories saw significant decreases in visitation and consumer spending, overall spending and visitation to online retail increased across desktop and mobile in March 2020 compared to March 2019.

As shelter-in-place orders remain in effect across many U.S. states, the Events & Tickets category continues to struggle, seeing weekly visitation at levels 75 percent below February 2020. Meanwhile visits to domains in the Home Furnishings category were up more than 90 percent during the week of April 27, 2020 versus the week of February 3, 2020, likely due to people investing in home improvements while staying home.

Looking at individual domains, prior to the peak of the pandemic outbreak, early March 2020 visitation to top retail domains looked relatively similar to visitation in early February 2020. However, by late March 2020, visitation trends shifted dramatically.

Overall, consumer spending in online retail across desktop and mobile was up 13 percent in March 2020 versus March 2019. The CPG/Grocery category has seen an explosion in spending, up over 90 percent in March 2020, as consumers flock to online food delivery services. In line with the significant drop in visitation, consumer spending on Events & Tickets was down over 50 percent year over year. Based on visitation trends Comscore has seen so far for April 2020, spending could fall even further for the Tickets category.