As a market research agency, Mix Research cannot but observe and analyze changes in the consumer behavior caused by different events. This article is an analytical summary based both on open-source data and contract research. The global COVID-19 pandemic, which took the entire year 2020, clearly impacted all the spheres of people’s lives. These changes primarily affected:

• Format of work;
• Education (for both adults and children);
• Leisure and entertainment;
• Family and sex life;
• Methods of making purchases in different spheres;
• Attitude toward the physical and emotional/mental health;
• Traveling;
• Living space arrangements.

Consequently, all of this led to changes in the consumer behavior.

• The movement restrictions sparked interest to remote shopping in different spheres.
• The natural physical activity restrictions revealed the zest for healthier, dietetic and balanced nutrition and ways to keep fit (or not requiring visits to crowded places) at home.
• The distance learning dramatically expanded the supply of services in this field and partially filled the leisure niche.

Such spheres of life, as work and study, are closely interrelated. The pandemic, for example, fueled the demand for own distance learning:

• On the one hand, the lockdown caused staffing cuts or task shifting, which required urgent reskilling.
• On the other hand, spare time, resulting from changes in the work schedule, allowed many people to carry out planned distance learning projects.

According to expert estimates, there has never been such an explosion of interest towards online learning as in 2020. On the one hand, the public event restrictions worked. On the other hand, the number of online service and app users soared. All of this dramatically expanded the role of the distance learning. Even those who did not believe in it (both among educational institutions and consumers) have to implement this format in their everyday life.

Experts have named the following trends in the development of adult education:

• Preservation and development of the demand for microlearning and gamification
• Active engagement of social media and chat bots in the learning process
• Integration of learning into the working process
• Approximation of the learning content to user interests and emotions, a less formal nature of the learning process

The distance learning of pre-school and school-aged children during the pandemic led to an enormous surge in interest to distance learning forms. The motives were as follows:

• Parent’s lack of confidence that they can make sure a child learn the necessary program
• A desire to distract the child from gadgets and games during the lockdown with something useful
• A necessity to entertain the child while the parents have to work from home

Thus, we can outline the following trends:

• The distance learning market has, to a certain degree, been diversified towards leisure and entertainment (for example, the category of online tours became richer and more popular)
• The lockdown forced companies offering educational services to promptly develop a supply in the online learning sphere and not all of them were equally ready to go online fast. Based on expert estimates, companies with a developed distance learning system moved training sessions to the Internet in 2 to 3 weeks at the earliest. For others, it took 2 to 6 months to change the methods of work and master new technologies.
• The distance learning launched during the lockdown became a regular fixture for many households and will probably not be limited to the pandemic threat period thanks to its affordability and availability.

With respect to the 2021 forecasts in this sphere, experts concur that the safest bet is that business will partially be back to the classroom learning while the distance learning will continue to conquer markets and grow rapidly.

It should also be noted that a widespread transition to work and study from home drove up gadget sales (with laptops and webcams being particularly popular).

Studies showed that many Russian consumers used the pandemic to renew and improve their housing conditions, as they made repairs during this time period. Consequently, the DIY supplies and interior (including furniture) market got a spark.

Interestingly, development market leaders promptly reacted to the changing housing demands amid work from home and offered new concepts and layouts with due regard to the workplace at home.

The entertainment market has become very much in demand amid the pandemic and bans from any public places, although it was probably hit the worst. In Russia, however, many streaming services benefited from the situation and attracted new subscribers by offering them a free or trial access to their content (based on the estimates of market players, the number of online cinema viewers and subscribers of other video services during the lockdown in Russia soared 50% to 100% almost instantaneously). A similar trend is observed in the sphere of electronic libraries.

According to the agency, the paid streaming subscriptions have increased to 39% from 19% year to date.

Speaking of the market development trends after the pandemic, it must be noted that the Russian segment will most likely face the same problems as the global segment – an exodus of advertisers, resulting from their economic difficulties, a decline in the purchasing power and a decrease in the new content due to fewer shootings during the pandemic. It will be all the more important for streaming services to retain the customer and, consequently, to keep tabs on satisfaction with the service level (by means of marketing research).

As regards changes in the lifestyle of Russians during the lockdown, it should not go without mention that there were no overseas vacations many people became addicted to (as of May 2020, the share of Russians who had their vacations canceled totaled 80%, according to TelecomDaily). But such situation spurred the domestic tourism in summer months.

Among the factors impacting the family and sex life of Russians, we can mention the following:

• The lockdown, which either increased or greatly decreased (if living apart) the time spent together
• Anxiety, stress, coming from the uncertainty about the future
• Changes in the material wealth

Impacted by these factors, the sexual health commodity market faced a surge of consumer interest, as the lockdown triggered experiments in this field.

The pandemic encouraged many people to get acquainted with remote shopping or increase its share compared to the pre-lockdown period. Such situation affected consumption varying from everyday essentials, including groceries, in the first place, to adult products.

The most striking changes took place in the purchase and sale of groceries – many retail chains, which had not offered remote shopping options before, launched such services in several formats:

• Direct-to-doorstep grocery delivery
• Pre-orders with pickup of purchased groceries at an outlet

Consumers who had not used grocery delivery before the lockdown at the very least tried this type of services during the pandemic. Those who were no stranger to such services now have a chance and an incentive to compare grocery delivery options offered by different brands, examine different delivery formats.

According to Mix Research, only 6% of Russians purchased groceries online in 2016. In 2020, the share of online grocery buyers hit 55%. The following estimates of the key indicators of the Russian e-commerce in 2020 provided by Yandex.Market Analytics can be cited as an illustration of changes in the consumer behavior*

Russian e-commerce perfomance, 2020

The Russian e-commerce was sensitive to the world events, as the turnover soared in March and the high load continued throughout the spring. In May, for example, the figures were already 30% higher than in January.

*Source: Yandex.Market and other Yandex services, partner stores.