Corona Has Changed the Hours of Online Shopping

The corona pandemic has influenced many of our habits – hygiene routines, social interaction, hobbies, work routines and, not to forget, our consumption behavior. Online shopping has been experiencing its golden times. It is an open secret that online sales have been surging across sectors since the outbreak of the pandemic. But it is not only the extent to which people shop online that has changed. Apparently, our new daily routines have also influenced the times when we make our online purchases, as Galaxus, a Swiss eCommerce player, has found out and shared in an interesting company insight. The company has analyzed purchases via their German website galaxus.de and compared pre-pandemic 2019 figures with current 2022 data:

An analysis of all purchases via galaxus.de from January to May of the years 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 shows that since the pandemic, Germans tend to shop later in the day. While the peak of purchases in 2019 was at around 10 in the morning, the hour showed comparably low purchasing activity in all three subsequent years. In 2022, only 5.3% of daily purchases were made at around 10 am. Now, after the pandemic, Germans rather tend to make a purchase shortly before lunch, with 8.9%, purchasing activity around 11 am is more than twice as high in 2022 as in 2019. But it is especially the evening hours that now tempt more Germans to make their online purchases. In 2019, around 15% of purchases were made between 8 pm and 10 pm. During the pandemic, the share of evening purchasers increased, resulting in 19%, or almost one in five orders on galaxus.de being placed during after-work hours in 2022. Many online shoppers have apparently become used to shopping later in the evening. One of the reasons might be found in people’s new work routines. As many people regularly work from home, there is less commuting time. Before the pandemic, many people used their time on public transport to and from work to shop. Some of these activities are apparently shifting towards the later evening. Swiss consumers, by the way, shop even later, according to Galaxus. The purchasing peak on galaxus.ch and digitec.ch is currently after 9 pm.