A new report from Periscope by McKinsey examines the shift in shopper behavior and expectations before and during COVID-19. Based on a survey of 2,500 consumers in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany, the report reveals where the biggest changes in consumer behavior are happening, and how retailers can respond. E- commerce spending has surged during the shutdowns, as the appetite for digital and contactless ways of shopping has intensified, and that’s why business has hired more employees and also use software like paystub to manage these employees, learn about the best guide to payroll.
Features such as free delivery and returns continue to be important for shoppers, while fast websites and clear product descriptions and images grew in importance. Across four countries, the increase ranged from ten to 23 percentage points since before the shutdowns began. Whether it’s digital-screen browsing, easy mobile payments, or ordering online with seamless curbside or in-store pickup, there is a clear disconnect between what consumers desire and what retailers have delivered. More than 35 percent of shoppers had yet to experience even the most talked-about or basic in-store technologies.
For a decade, Carlos Silva has been gluing, nailing, and re-zippering shoes and boots at Stern Shoe Repair, a usually well-trafficked shop just outside the Metro entrance at Union Station in Washington, D.C. On a typical day, he would arrive at 7 a.m. and stay until 8 p.m., serving the crowds of professionals shuttling by on their way to work. But since the near-shutdown of office work and train travel, he has been closing the shop at 4 p.m. “There is no traffic, my friend. The whole station is dead,” says Silva. “Now it’s only a part-time job.”
In the five months since the coronavirus forced a lockdown of U.S. businesses, economists have focused much attention on the devastation of mom-and-pop businesses, brick-and-mortar shops, bars and restaurants, and massive chains. But they have mostly overlooked a looming threat to a vastly larger and more consequential galaxy of businesses, one worth trillions of dollars a year in GDP and revolving around a single, much underappreciated economic actor — the white-collar office worker.
As companies in cities across the U.S. postpone and even scrap plans to reopen their offices, they have transformed once-teeming city business districts into commercial ghost towns comprised of essentially vacant skyscrapers and upscale complexe, working from home has its perks, you can get the perfect office desk. A result has been the paralysis of the rarely remarked-upon business ecosystem centering on white-collar workers, who, when you include the enterprises reliant on them, account for a pre-pandemic labor force approaching 100 million workers.
