What are people buying more of?

From stockpiling concerns to people cutting down on trips outside, our shopping habits have changed drastically. We need to get to the supermarket, get what will last us for a decent amount of time, get out (preferably as quickly as possible).

That means more forward-thinking, planning, and, we figured, more shopping bags per trip.

To find out what people were buying more of, we ran a Qriously survey. We polled 8,094 adults from Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the US via their smartphone and tablets.¹

Here’s what we found out.

Things like pasta and rice top the list. This won’t be much of a surprise as they last a long time and lend themselves to easy meals.

Fresh fruit and veg take the next spot. Obviously these products don’t last as long, but they’re integral for keeping healthy, an issue on a lot of people’s minds right now. With many restaurants and takeouts closed, people are having to rely on themselves for cooking, which will also add to the increase.

Looking at the data by country, over 50% of respondents in each one reported buying more of these products than normal. German respondents reported the lowest number, with 57% reporting picking up more of the items listed.

A very different picture emerged from Italy and Spain though, where 75% of respondents reported buying more of these supplies than the week before.

We also found some national differences in the products people were most likely to buy more of. Again, Germany stood out from the crowd.

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Learning languages in lockdown

We’ve already seen that people are looking for things to do in isolation, including DIY art and video games. Now we’ve found that people are looking to learn new languages, too.

The English-language conversation around learning a new language jumped by 40% this month, the largest month-to-month change since May 2014. Previously there was an increase of 31% from Mar 2019 to Apr 2019, when the below Duolingo tweet led to an avalanche of memes.

This is another sign that some people are using their downtime (if they have any) productively, and to learn new skills. With a slew of apps available, it’s now incredibly easy to pick up a bit of French or Russian.

What the makers of these apps need to do is make sure they’re gearing their products to work in the new conditions many are now under, and to get themselves in front of potential users.

We thought we’d give them a hand with some extra data to guide their focus. Based on English-language mentions, here are the languages people mentioned learning the most this month.

Houseparty and TikTok sweep social mentions

We couldn’t look through our social media feeds without seeing these two infamous apps pop up. So we had a look into social data around Houseparty, an app for group video chatting, and TikTok, the app famed for short and silly videos, to find out what was behind the conversation wave.

Since January, mentions of the TikTok and Houseparty apps have jumped up. With people using the former to broadcast their lives under lockdown, and the latter to connect with friends, it’s no surprise.

But while TikTok mentions remain high compared to normal, they’ve seen a drop week-on-week. In comparison, Houseparty mentions have continued to rise.

It is a bit early to draw conclusions, but it might link to something we’ve already covered. Last week we looked at the rise of virtual bars, and how people were hunting for platforms where they could interact with friends. It could be that people are swapping passive viewing on TikTok for active socializing on Houseparty.

Controversy

You may have already seen the headlines about users suspecting their accounts were hacked through Houseparty. Houseparty denies this, saying accounts are safe.

After investigating with Consumer Research, we found users suggesting their Spotify, Instagram, Snapchat, PayPal, and bank accounts had been accessed without authorization because of the app.

Houseparty has offered $1,000,000 to the person who can help them prove it’s a smear campaign.

Meanwhile, we also found 7k people reacting badly to Houseparty’s process for deleting the app. It’s tone did not go down well with some.

Which do people prefer? 

TikTok is the app people prefer, according to sentiment-segmented conversation – a solid 74% of mentions were positive. For Houseparty, the app’s mentions were only 49% positive, with the hacking accusations making a big dent.

The battle for consumer attention is highly competitive. This is not a good look for Houseparty, and it’ll be interesting to see how the controversy plays out.

Get more in-depth data

Our weekly report goes into far more detail that we can do here. If you want to get a better understanding of how the world is responding to Covid-19, you don’t want to miss it.

Head here to find out more and get signed up.

Thanks for reading

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Stay safe.

¹ Note: All surveys are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error. On the basis of the historical record of the polls at recent general elections, there is a 9 in 10 chance that the true value of a survey result lies within 4 points of the estimates provided by this survey, and a 2 in 3 chance that they lie within 2 points.