Brushing Up On Hygiene: Are Household Cleaning Products Performing Well Out of Pandemic?
The lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic has kept nearly all of us inside our homes a lot more than usual. This was true particularly at the earlier stages of the crisis in which even recreation and exercise outdoors was kept to a limit. For many of us, the home has now had to double up as the office, a gym or even to mimic a restaurant. In some way or another, we are all spending more time in our homes. How is this affecting the household cleaning market? A member of our household product marketing team takes a closer look.
The days of the 1940s, 1950s when we were particularly house proud are somewhat diminished now, but is a love for our homes now returning due to us being inside more during lockdown? With a global pandemic raising hygiene concerns, and people having to spend a lot more time in their homes with more spare time to clean, we could be seeing a rise in the sale of home cleaning products that might be here to stay.
A rise in the sale of cleaning products will most predominately stem from the concern due to COVID-19 entering the home. A study back in May found that the UK public are the ‘most concerned’ over the pandemic than others. Further evidence now suggests that COVID-19 can survive on surfaces for up to nine days, although this is disputed.
That being said, with raised concerns, this will certainly drive household cleaning product sales in a bid for consumers to keep their homes as a safe haven from the virus. In the US, it is forecasted that the household cleaning products market is set to grow by $25.7 billion during 2020-2024, this must certainly be impacted by the pandemic and seems little reason that this should not be resonated in the UK on some level.
When we look at the 2008 recession as an example of large-scale economic crisis to now, the Coronavirus pandemic has affected markets in a varied way in comparison. In 2008, the economic crisis led to consumers economising in almost all consumer goods categories and that included cleaning products as a platform for reducing their household expenses. The COVID-19 pandemic has instead led to elevating the status of cleaning products on household shopping lists.
The household cleaning product category is now part of the consumer survival plan in the fight against the pandemic. With cleaning products becoming a key shopping item in the bid to ward off COVID-19 into the household, we might see that consumers will begin to spend more than usual on household cleaning products not only in terms of quantity but quality too.
Consumers are likely to be more inclined to spent far more than usual on high-quality products with high strength ingredients that they can put more faith in to disinfect the home. As the shortage of hand washes and hand sanitisers at the start of lockdown has shown us, people started with the home as their first place to improve hygiene and gain protection against the virus.
The shift in shopping behaviour and needs of the consumer has also affect the way in which people are buying household products. Pre-pandemic shopping meant that cleaning products were something that we popped in the trolley once a week, however, since the pandemic and the growth in e-commerce shopping, consumers have been wanting cleaning products by the bulk load.
The pandemic has motivated a large amount of shoppers to stock up on household essentials online, this has led to collaborations between brands and retailers to optimise certain household items for bulk shipping and to become more e-commerce friendly.
What Does The Future Hold For The Household Sector?
So, we know that people are buying more household cleaning products in response to hygiene concerns due to the pandemic but are consumers going to continue to be more generally house proud in the future? It is predicted that consumers will be slow to return to their pre-pandemic cleaning routines. For many, cleaning and re-vamping their homes has become more than just hygiene related. Cleaning brands are fast becoming lifestyle brands which people use in a therapeutic way, used to alleviate the stress that COVID-19 has brought for many.
FMCG market research shows that many UK adults who have the cleaning responsibilities of the home link a clean home to health and self-esteem. For many, cleaning and revamping the home will have brought a sense of control and routine back into consumers lives that the pandemic has largely taken away. Cleaning has emerged into the social media world too, from the sharing of cleaning tips and trick to the success of ‘Mrs Hinch’ who has gained a huge following in recent times.
Due to the nature of the economic crisis we are now entering, cleaning products and household items seems to have largely escaped massive economic downfall. Many are now not only seeing cleaning as a way to battle the physical dangers of the COVID-19 virus but as a way to find calm and routine in lockdown life. This shopping behaviour looks set to be with us for a while to come even after the lockdown period.
Contact us if you would like to discuss the topic of how well household cleaning products are performing during the coronavirus pandemic in further detail.
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