Anxiety levels continued their rising trend, reaching their highest point since the start of May. Respondents are on edge and the threat of new outbreaks is clearly on people’s minds.

While some semblance of normality is returning in many corners of the world, that doesn’t mean people are happy to get back into stores without a care. In fact, rising anxiety levels suggest they’re getting warier.

Our Qriously surveys also asked people about the things they consider when visiting a shop, how they prefer to pay, and concerns around contamination and proximity to people. With this data we can get an idea of people’s main worries and what businesses can do to encourage footfall.

Here’s what our respondents told us.

Over half of people think about mask requirements. Masks have received increasing attention throughout the pandemic, with adoption rising despite resistance from some. Another question in our survey found 63% of respondents are wearing masks, up from 49% at the start of May when we first asked it.

Social distancing comes an unsurprising second with 34% of respondents selecting this option, while the related issue of capacity limits followed at 30%. Contactless payments and protective barriers are also considerations for 30% of respondents. What this gives store owners is an excellent checklist of safety procedures they need to consider alongside official guidelines, in priority order.

Going back to the social distancing and capacity limits responses, these tally with our data on concerns about proximity and contamination.

This question wasn’t asked in relation to stores, but shows how our anxieties about general life match with those about shopping specifically.

The above chart should be of huge interest, not only shop owners, but to any company looking to get people through their doors or workers back into their offices. Only 34% of people are unconcerned about the issues above (selecting ‘None of the above’ in our survey). That leaves two thirds of the population that will need reassurance around proximity and contamination.

Another big issue for our respondents is around contactless payment. We were able to dig deeper into this to see how other methods stack up.

Contactless payments lead the pack by a wide margin in terms of preferred payment methods. This should be a big wake up call to any businesses that have yet to implement this technology. Having said that, cash and chip payments, which involve contact, make up 43% of first preferences. The old ways aren’t done yet.

But if worries and fears around health and safety grow, particularly as the pandemic goes on and we get used to doing all we can to stop local outbreaks, preference for contactless payments could start to outweigh contact-dependent payments before long.

What we can see is that the picture is constantly evolving. Many may be getting used to the pandemic as it is, but how we adapt in the long term is still becoming apparent. It’s likely that safety will be as much a selling point as great prices for stores, for the foreseeable future at least.

For more data on payments and a cashless future, read our report on financial services in 2020.

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Stay safe,

Brandwatch Response Team