NEW DATA: States Push To Reopen – Will Consumer Demand Follow?

It has been almost two months since the World Health Organization (WHO) first declared the coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, and it has since taken an unprecedented toll on consumers’ wellbeing and livelihoods.

Many policymakers are making a push to lift the restrictions that have been put in place to slow the spread of contagion in the hopes of reviving the battered economy. Twenty-four states have at least partially reopened while six more plan to do so in the near future.

The problem is that only three out of 10 consumers are eager to leave their homes more often than they do now, and one in four are not interested in going back out — at all. How are businesses to navigate this new, post-pandemic economy when their customers don’t want to return to their normal shopping routines?

This is just one of the key questions PYMNTS sets out to answer in The Great Reopening: The Road To A Digital Normal edition. We surveyed 2,047 American consumers to learn how their lives have changed in the wake of the outbreak, how it has shifted their outlook for when the pandemic is over and why many might not be so anxious to return to the way they lived before.

Our research shows that most consumers are unlikely to return to their pre-pandemic routines anytime soon, in no small part because they have grown used to living life on lockdown. Among consumers who are still employed, 31.5 percent have reverted to working online remotely, for example, while 39.2 percent who continue to shop for leisure are doing so online.

Consumers have gotten so used to managing life from home, in fact, that about half intend to continue working, shopping and ordering food from the web more often than they did before the outbreak. Our research shows that 43.6 percent of consumers who have gone online to work remotely plan to keep doing so just as often as they do now, even after their offices open back up. We also see 45.8 percent of consumers who have gone online to shop for leisure reporting they plan to keep doing so after the pandemic.

With so many consumers planning to stay home and carry out more actions online — even after stay-at-home orders are rescinded — what will entice them to go back outside? The Great Reopening: The Road To A Digital Normal edition addresses this question, and many more.

To learn more about how consumers plan to live their lives when states reopen, download the report.