Five Fast Facts On The Digital Shift, By The Numbers

The fact that the world is a very different place than it was a little under a year ago isn’t likely to be called into question by anyone currently reading this in pajama pants as they work from home. But quantifying that change can be somewhat difficult when there has been so much change, in so many places and all at once, for the last 10 months.

Luckily, PYMNTS, taking a look at our own data and a new release from Comscore, has come up with five quick points that break down the consumer’s new relationship with mobile — and where it’s going next.

1. D2C Had A Big Year In The Us — With More On The Horizon

The latest survey from Comscore demonstrates massive gains and growth by direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands during the pandemic period. Boll & Branch saw its user views up 208 percent, Bouqs’ jumped 196 percent and Peloton rounded out the top three with its views spiking 168 percent. Not only was the growth striking, but it was also diverse — D2C brands made big leaps among consumers across verticals, with grocery, food kits, fitness, flowers, sheets and eyeglass purchases all seeing significant uplifts in consumer interest over the course of the last 10 months.

And big brands have sought to cash in on the digital surge. Pepsi recently debuted two D2C websites, PantryShop.com and Snacks.com, where consumers can order popular food and beverage brands. In May, Kraft Heinz launched its first-ever D2C business line, Heinz To Home, with warehouse club-sized packages of staples like beans and spaghetti for home deliveries. Impossible Foods, known for its plant-based meat substitutes, also launched a new D2C site, while Macallan Scotch went D2C this summer and Coke entered 2021 with a relaunch of its subscription offering.

As a recent PYMNTS panel noted, the D2C trend is likely to not only carry on, but to also expand into new verticals. But it comes with a caveat: Not every firm that has. seen a growth explosion will be able to hold onto it post-pandemic, when D2Cs are back to competing more directly with physical retail.

“The food subscriptions, I think they’re going to suffer,” BloomsyBox CEO Juan Palacio noted. “People are spending their time at home trying new things to cook and to entertain themselves, which has been a huge boon for these companies, but I think they’re going to be suffering a lot when people go back to normal. Even if any customers already acquired a habit of using any given platform, I see a trend where there is some at-home fatigue, and consumers just really want to go out.”

2. Consumers Ages 24-51 Consume Two-Thirds Of Mobile Video Content

Mobile video consumption, on the whole, has been up over the last year, but that activity is very much demographically determined. The largest consumers of mobile video are 25 to 34 years old, representing nearly a quarter of the pie at 24 percent. They are followed by consumers ages 35 to 44, at 21 percent. The numbers start dropping from there, with consumers from 45 to 54 years old accountable for 16 percent of mobile video consumption, and consumers ages 21-24 comprising 10 percent.

With the vast number of consumers in their active spending years, firms are actively investing in leveraging video channels. As Bank of America Rewards Executive John Sellers noted in an interview with Karen Webster, the proof of the power of video is in the engagement figures the bank has seen since integrating it into their mobile and digital banking offering.

“The folks who are viewing the videos, when their behaviors are compared to the others, we’re seeing they are buying more assets, we’re seeing deeper penetration in certain products like credit cards — that is kind of the proof point that says, ‘okay, we’re onto something here,’” Sellers said.

3. Consumers Flocked To Food Delivery Apps In 2020 — And May Be There For A While

According to Comscore’s new data, consumers no longer dining out rapidly pivoted their dining habits toward ordering in for delivery. DoorDash saw its user base increase by 39 percent, Uber Eats jumped 11 percent and Grubhub picked up 28 percent, as thousands of homebound consumers decided to give online delivery platforms a try for the first time.

And those consumers, according to PYMNTS data, expect to stick with their new habits for some time to come. As of this fall, the average consumer expected to experience the pandemic’s effects for another 326 days, up from 270 days on May 23 and 213 days on April 27. The expectation was just 138 days on March 17, when the pandemic was beginning. That’s a 240 percent increase over the course of the pandemic.

The pandemic period, and thus the conditions that motivated the explosion in food delivery apps, may have some time remaining — but as Paytronix CEO Andrew Robbins noted, DoorDash and its competitors will still have a lot to prove when it eventually comes to an end.

“It’s just like Zoom. They’ve benefited from a massive disruption to the system,” Robbins said. “The reality is that’s going to ease. People like to go back to their old behaviors, so that’ll happen. But some of what’s here will remain, and it will be interesting to see exactly how much and what they can do with it.”

4. Consumers Are Paying On Mobile More, But Still Lean Toward Online Buys

While payment via mobile devices has gone up during the pandemic, according to Comscore’s data, the boost has mostly involved online and in-app purchases on phones — both of which have grown in the last year, to 62 and 60 percent of consumers, respectively. QR codes have fallen off, while tap and pay (NFC) has been largely flat, likely attributable to the pandemic and consumers shopping less often in physical stores.

But according to PYMNTS data, that apparent drop-off may be a bit misleading, as consumers have consistently shown a mounting preference for contactless payments over the course of 2020, with 83 percent looking to leverage them in grocery stores, 81 percent interested in using them in drug stores and 77 percent looking to use contactless payments in fast-food restaurants and coffee shops.

According to the data, the mobile experience now must meet expectations for relevance and efficiency, as the majority of consumers (55 percent) are still interested in trying new connected experiences to make their shopping journeys faster and more convenient.

5. The Power Of Protecting Digital Privacy

The ecosystem is evolving toward privacy, as shown in the expanding worldwide regulations designed to protect it — and the more advanced innovations that aim to make data traceable and correctable across organizations.

And, according to PYMNTS data, it’s increasingly valuable to the consumers themselves. When asked, 97 percent of consumers cited privacy as important to them, 81 percent ranked trust as fundamental to deciding where to spend their money, and  70 percent would leave their healthcare provider if they didn’t feel their personal information was adequately protected. Over that, some 90 percent of consumers believe the government is responsible for protecting digital data.

And as the world will likely stay online long after the pandemic has run its course, it’s essential to secure the customer’s data and clearly define privacy, as Michael Reidbord, president of the retail technology organization Fashion Tech Consortium, noted in an interview with PYMNTS.

“When stores are open again and everything’s safe and we have a vaccine, I think we will have a high retention rate of people who are actually purchasing online,” Reidbord said. “The numbers may go down as far as the level of transactions, but I think eCommerce is here to stay. And if it is, that means data security is here to stay.  It has to get better.”

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