A recent survey conducted by WOM Network with over 1,700 Australian grocery buyers via Mouths of Mums® has identified an unexpected consequence of the turmoil grocery shoppers experienced during COVID-19 lockdowns.

“Brand loyalty is no more”

The resulting scarcity of certain products from supermarket shelves, be it from supply chain issues or grocery hoarding, has meant that 61% of consumers have been forced to try new brands over the past few months.

And the troubling statistic for brands with historically solid market share is that only 18% of those consumers plan to shift completely back to their original brand choice. 3% said now that they’ve tried challenger brands, they wouldn’t return to any pre COVID-19 brands. The remainder planning to stick with some or all of the new brands they have recently tried.

Warwick Hills, Co-Founder and CEO of WOM Network, said, “Brands will need to work harder than ever to re-establish connections and loyalty with their customers in the coming months, possibly years. Those that experienced short-term spikes in sales due to hoarding may suffer a longer term decline as their loyal customers were forced to consider their competitors during COVID-19 induced outages”.

The study also explored other changes in shopping behaviour, new attitudes to grocery buying and the likelihood of COVID-19 shopper behaviour becoming the “new normal”.

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