People turn to corner shops during pandemic

More people turned to corner shops during lockdown with many planning to continue using local businesses, new data from PayPoint has shown.

Figures show the average number of baskets of items bought between March and July rose 32 percent at PayPoint stores compared to the four months leading up to the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the number of goods in each basket rose 39 per cent, and the value of each basket rose 64 per cent, the data shows.

Nick Wiles, Pay Point chief executive, said: "Convenience stores largely remained open through the crises, they became a central support point for communities ... people gravitated as close to home as they could.”

Some categories of products saw a massive boom at the start of the lockdown period but others came into their own later and are more likely to see sales remain higher after lockdown, Mr Wiles said.

In March there was a 191 per cent spike in sales of household goods as people scrambled for cleaning products which settled back to 58 per cent up in April and up 34 per cent in July.

However most other categories peaked in May, as grocery sales were up 47 per cent, confectionery was up 22 per cent, cigarettes and tobacco added 39 per cent, off licence sales doubled, and sales of frozen foods quadrupled.

All these categories have since settled down but frozen foods remained up 158 per cent in July.

And out of 2,000 adults, 51 percent said they are planning to continue shopping at their local convenience store.