Sustainable, Local, Ethical: How is Covid-19 Changing Our Shopping Habits?

Looking at mentions of local businesses, support for local grocery stores has been an important topic for consumers, with 16k mentions on social. Meanwhile, 8.9k people were discussing supporting their local restaurants by ordering takeaway deliveries.

Demographic analysis reveals that women are more likely than men to discuss ordering local take out or buying indie products. Meanwhile, men are more likely than women to take to social media to ask about the best sustainable, ethical, or local shopping options

Moral dilemma

Shopping locally, ethically, or sustainably is creating a lot of positivity in online conversations, with 41% of emotion-categorized conversation appearing as joyful.

But there are negative sides, too.

The second strongest emotion driving this conversation is anger (33%), driven by people calling out corporations staying open while smaller businesses closed their doors.

And, for shoppers who have decided to support ethical, local, or sustainable businesses or products, there’s a moral dilemma about delivery. We found 19k mentions featuring concern about workers delivering non-essential items during the crisis.

For these consumers, buying ethically now also means thinking about ethical delivery. It’s not enough to just order locally or from an independent, ethical, or sustainable business – it’s also vital the product be essential enough for the delivery chain to support it without putting people in danger.

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