According to our recent study, COVID-19 is changing how consumers plan to spend Thanksgiving. The survey asked 600 consumers how they plan to spend Thanksgiving this year, and the majority of respondents (36.67%) said they’ll be spending it at home without guests, compared to last year when only 21.79% spent it at home alone. Consumers will be traveling less, with 25.5% of consumers stating that they’ll be visiting family and friends, compared to 37.18% last year.
How did you spend Thanksgiving Day LAST year?
At home without guests | 21.79% |
At home with guests | 39.74% |
I will be visiting family or friends | 37.18% |
I will be traveling and staying at a hotel/airbnb | 1.28% |
How are you planning to spend Thanksgiving Day THIS year?
At home without guests | 36.67% |
At home with guests | 20.00% |
I will be visiting family or friends | 25.50% |
I will be traveling and staying at a hotel/airbnb | 0.67% |
Not sure yet because of COVID-19 | 17.17% |
How consumers plan to spend Thanksgiving isn’t the only thing that looks different this year. COVID-19 has had a massive impact on the way consumers buy their groceries, with a surge in online grocery shopping. For many, buying groceries online has become the norm. In fact, our research shows that only 20% of online grocery shoppers will return to brick-and-mortar only buying when the pandemic is over. 56% of consumers said they’ll be doing at least some of their Thanksgiving grocery shopping online this year.
How are you going to do grocery shopping for Thanksgiving Day?
I will order everything online | 25.29% |
I will order some things online, but I will also go to a grocery store | 30.88% |
I will go to a grocery store | 43.82% |
At the onset of the pandemic, consumers reported issues with online grocery shopping including delays and difficulty with ordering. In April, 17.24% of consumers stated that their last delivery was delayed, and 60.75% reported that it was easy to make an order. In the August study, only 8.08% of consumers reported a delayed delivery, and nearly 75% said their order was easy.
It was easy to order | 74.13% |
Delivery/Pick-up was on-time | 60.05% |
Some items I ordered were sold out | 35.10% |
Some items I ordered were substituted with something familiar | 32.33% |
Delivery was delayed | 8.08% |
I had to join a waiting list before I could shop | 7.39% |
My order was cancelled | 2.08% |
I was unable to schedule a Delivery/Pick-up time | 0.69% |
Other | 0.69% |
This article was originally published in Path to Purchase IQ.
We will continue to monitor consumer trends as we navigate out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
