The outbreak of the coronavirus has significantly impacted shopping habits in Brazil, where sales across some 150 retail chains are growing exponentially week-on-week, according to data from Nielsen.
The research firm analysed the shopping behaviour of Brazilian consumers based on two distinct periods: after the first case (week from 23 February to 1 March) and after the announcement of the pandemic by the WHO (from 1 March to 8 March).
Sales Increase
In the first such period, there was a 66% increase in sales of products across the 550 categories audited by Nielsen.
Offline retail sales focused on cleaning products (+20% on the previous week), while highest growth came from alcohol gel (+623%), air filters (+100%), alcohol (+85%), cleaning products in general (+58%) and liquid soap (+33%).
In the second period, sales growth spread to 88% of the categories and revenues expanded by 16.2%.
This time, there was a significant take-up of commodity products – rice, beans, coffee, sugar and flour (+31%), cleaning (+21%), hygiene & beauty (+25%), grocery (+18%), medicines (+13%) and perishables (+11%).
The Brazilian e-commerce was also significantly affected, with the most sought product categories in the period January-March being Hygiene, Home Cleaning, Baby Products and Grocery.
Regional Differences
The fact that Brazilian regions are at different stages of the Covid-19 emergency has also changed consumption behaviour.
The states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which have the highest incidence of cases, have moved to stage 4, which represents preparation for quarantined living, with increased online shopping and decreasing visits to physical stores.
The next step is restricted living, when consumers makes limited shopping trips and concerns grows as limited stock availability impacts pricing.
Other parts of Brazil are somewhere between stages 2 and 3, during which consumers give priority to health and safety products, deemed essential to contain the virus.
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
