Sometimes it seems as if the world ground to a standstill during the past eight weeks or so. People stayed at home, hoping to stop the spread of the coronavirus – but that doesn’t mean they also stopped buying stuff. On the contrary, online sales of certain products, including home appliances, sports equipment and other items, saw huge increases.
Customer engagement platform Emarsys teamed up with data visualization company GoodData to create an accurate image of the products people were most keen on purchasing while under lockdown. The two companies analyzed over a billion engagements and 400 million customers’ transactions across the globe and found out that home appliances sold like hot cakes during this period. Other items, such as sport equipment and personal care gear were also in high demand.
In North America, the revenue for online sales of home and leisure products was up 120% during the first week of May 2020 compared with the same period of the previous year. Revenue from sales of sport- and hobby-related items were also 146% higher during the first days of May 2020 versus May 2019. Of course, if you’re one of those cautious people who keeps their sports gear and bread-making machine in a storage unit until they’re needed, you won’t have to spend a lot of money on new stuff now.
Dishwasher sales jumped by a whopping 4,000%
A good dishwasher is apparently worth its weight in gold during a pandemic that forces people to cook each and every meal at home. Worldwide orders for this home appliance were up a mind-blowing 4,000% year-over-year during the last week of April 2020.
Plenty of people also needed to upgrade their washing machines – and maybe that’s not surprising, because most of us have felt it’s safer to wash our clothes, bedsheets and towels more frequently during this period. Online orders for washing machines were 600% higher during the last week of April 2020, compared to the same period of the previous year.
Online orders for computer monitors were also 600% up year-over-year for the same period, fueled not only by the work-from-home policy implemented by many companies but also by the fact that students of all ages switched to online schooling. The same factors drove worldwide online orders for office chairs up by 500% at the end of April 2020 versus the same period of the previous year.
Lockdown art – tripod sales explode
It’s pretty obvious why people would buy more dishwashers and office chairs while cooped up at home; however, it’s a bit more difficult to come up with an explanation for the 6,300% year-over-year uptick in online orders for tripods. Are people so aggravated by not being able to go to cinemas and museums that they started making their own movies and art? Hopefully that’s the case – we might even be witnessing the birth of an entirely new art genre, lockdown art.
Tripod sales could very well be related to the significant, 900% year-over-year increase in online orders for makeup mirrors. You can’t, after all, take a great picture or video without having your makeup done properly.
Good news – people keep doing sports even under lockdown
It’s very encouraging to see that people are not deterred by current circumstances and they are sticking to their fitness routines. And, since going to the gym or playing team sports with friends was not really an option during this period, orders for sports equipment that can be used at home saw a very significant increase.
Online orders for Swiss balls, a versatile device that allows users to do a huge variety of exercises, were 5,400% up year-over-year during the last week of April 2020. Orders for boxing gloves and soccer balls also saw a 2,000% gain during the same period. Rollers skates, perfect for solitary rides in the park, saw a 1,900% annual increase in online orders. Basketball shoes, on the other hand, experienced an uptick in online orders of “only” 850%.
What other home appliances, leisure products or sports equipment did you purchase, or consider purchasing during this period? Let us know in the comments!
