Customers with increasingly busy lives are navigating the impact of COVID-19 and looking for ways to connect with products and services at any time with maximum ease and speed. In addition to “the need for speed,” shoppers have consolidated trips whenever possible and want more out of every retail interaction. In fact, limited personal travel and strategic distancing has shifted the majority of trips to short, local occasions for essentials and staples.

Prior to the pandemic in 2019, about 20% of convenience occasions were classified by shoppers as “a quick trip to pick something up.” That number has more than doubled to 47% post COVID-19, as customers are keeping to their own local “orbit.” Social, business and leisure trips have all given way to evening commuting and quick trips.

About one third (32%) of convenience shopping trips are still contributed by the commuter; however, morning trips have fallen to 14.3% from 18.1% pre-COVID, and afternoon and evening trips have grown to 17.4% from 13.5%. Post-COVID-19, the channel has a higher percentage of afternoon and evening commuters as essential workers and busy families stop in “on the way to home from work or school.” More than a third (36%) of afternoon and evening commuters are stopping in for snacks, meal stand-ins and meal bridges, but there is an opportunity to convert them to more substantial meal occasions with menu innovation.