Supermarket sweep: Spending data reveals shopper stockpiling and collapse in holiday bookings
Brits are stocking up on essentials and holding off on booking holidays as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the country, but they aren’t yet splashing the cash on takeaways, according to data from Starling Bank.
The digital bank said customer spending at supermarkets was soaring to levels typically seen at Christmas, with warehouse outlet Costco entering its list of most popular merchants for the first time.
The data, which covers the week to Monday, shows a spike in customer spending last Saturday as customers rushed to stock up on groceries over the weekend.
There was a 10 per cent increase in the amount that individual shoppers were spending at Tesco supermarkets compared to previous weeks, Starling said.
Unsurprisingly, given that the coronavirus pandemic has all but ground global travel to a halt, Starling Bank reported a 13 per cent decline in customer spending on holidays.
The slump in spending was particularly acute at the most popular merchants for holidays, which experienced an 18 per cent fall in transaction value. Starling said that Airbnb, British Airways, Booking.com, Easyjet and Ryanair.
Spending by customers abroad also plummeted. Italy, the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak in Europe, was hardest hit, but similar declines were starting to show across other European countries.
Interestingly, the digital bank is yet to see the large uptick it expects in spending at takeaway delivery services such as Deliveroo and Just Eat it had been expecting as increasing numbers of Brits enter self-isolation.
The release of the spending data comes as the UK’s digital banks prepare to shutter their offices as the coronavirus spreads.
Most staff at Monzo and Revolut are working from home, City PM reported earlier this week, with approximately half of Starling Bank’s staff now based at home.