Shopping From Home

Conducting a new survey on the Nielsen Consumer panel we examine the impact of working from home (WFH) on shopping, finding three key results. First, WFH changed shopping modes, increasing online shopping and the fraction of trips to stores on weekdays. Second, WFH increased total spending through increased product quantity and range, tilting expenditure towards food and general merchandise and away from health and beauty products. Finally, WFH increased prices paid by shoppers and lowered price elasticities due to a move towards higher-cost products and lower deal usage. The change in prices paid is concentrated among married households, driven by a redistribution of shopping responsibility within the household, especially when the new remote worker is male. We find that remote workers engage in more shopping trips but fewer minutes of shopping. Our results suggest that shifting to remote work increases prices paid for groceries by about 1%, highlighting how WFH is impacting households, retail and inflation.