Consumer Costs of COVID-19

If you’ve noticed higher prices at the checkout aisle since COVID-19, you’re not alone. Americans across the country have been paying more for staples such as meat, eggs, and poultry as well as everyday household goods. Grocery prices skyrocketed beginning in March and still haven’t fallen to pre-pandemic levels. 

In order to find out how Americans have been adjusting to higher prices, we surveyed 2,040 consumers and asked them how COVID-19 has affected their budget, shopping habits and diets. 

At C+R Research, we continue to be committed to helping you connect with consumers in a meaningful way. 

Here are resources from Part 2 of our Consumer Connections Series that provide easy ways for you to hear directly from consumers.
 

To download the summary report, fill out the form to the right.

On August 5, 2020, we hosted our seventh Consumer Connections Panel to take a pulse on consumers’ evolving attitudes and behaviors during the coronavirus pandemic. In this latest session, we focused on how the pandemic has shifted their travel and summer plans this year. In addition, we completed a survey at the same time with 300 additional consumers to better understand the magnitude of these shifts and changes.

Here are five takeaways of what we learned. 

At C+R Research, we continue to be committed to helping you connect with consumers in a meaningful way during the COVID-19 pandemic. But now that consumers have settled into this new normal, what’s next? We are providing our clients with opportunities to hear from consumers about new topics that are important to them during this time. 

As we resume our Consumer Connections Series, we’ll explore with consumers what summer vacations and travel look like for them during the pandemic. 

On June 8, 2020, The New York Times published research with epidemiologists, predicting when they will feel personally comfortable with a range of everyday activities. This begged the question to us of how their attitudes and expectations would compare to the U.S. general population. Would the doctors be more conservative, or more ready to embrace some form of normal? We tapped our ongoing consumer surveys to find out. 

To provide brands with an opportunity to connect with consumers, C+R hosted an online pop-up community as a part of our COVID-19 Chronicles Consumer Connections Series. For the community, participants from across the United States shared their stories in real-time over a two-week period. A portion of these consumers also participated in a digital ethnography, chronicling their lives, behaviors, and attitudes during the current environment with videos, pictures, and text. And, all of the consumer community participants completed daily diaries to track their emotional journeys.

A few months ago—pre-COVID19—we highlighted three trends that we felt could have the biggest impact on consumer behavior and spending in 2020. Although the Coronavirus pandemic has since won that distinction, we wanted to revisit these trends—sustainability, Gen Z, and qualitative research—to examine how they are faring in the pandemic.

As soon as COVID-19 proved itself to be a big deal by keeping us, and many Americans, safe at home, C+R Research developed a COVID-19 Task Force to keep a pulse on changing consumer behaviors. As we have watched the emotional roller coaster COVID-19 has been for consumers, and the term “new normal” grow in popularity, we began to wonder what the future would look like.