COVID-19: What’s selling, what’s not!

By Siddhi Jain

New Delhi, April 12  Thanks to the novel coronavirus lockdown, hoarding was the first reaction.

Millions of people resorted to panic buying around the world; and grocery stores were emptied out in a matter of hours. But, what have they been hoarding and buying online the most?

According to data from Google Trends, searches for toilet paper and hand sanitizer saw over a 950 percent increase recently, and continue to be on the rise. For protection against the COVID-19, people also seem to be buying N95 and disposable masks in large quantities, as its searches have seen a steep rise online. As per Adobe, Virus protection category products such as hand sanitizer, gloves, masks and antibacterial sprays surged 817 percent.

According to Adobe Analytics, e-commerce has been up 25 percent in just mid-March as compared to early March, driven primarily by online grocery shopping due to the ongoing situation with COVID-19.

During early 2020, over-the-counter drug purchases increased by 198 percent for cold and flu medications and 152 percent for pain relievers.

Toilet paper online sales have spiked by 186 percent, while non-perishable canned foods and shelf-stable food sales have increased 69 percent.

Specifically for India, searches for “Sports Club” and “Fitness” registered an increase of 60 percent each. People also seem to be inclined towards buying fitness trackers. There seems to be a greater push towards yoga classes online, with the ‘Shilpa Shetty fitness app’ becoming popular nowadays.

People are also 400 percent more curious about finding “fitness equipment stores” near them.

It can also be said that while the focus is on personal fitness and nutrition these days, categories like “electronics” and “apparels”, or even “jewelry” do not find favour with as many people around the world.

(Siddhi Jain can be reached at siddhi.j@ians.in)