Toilet Paper Sales Rose by 130% at Start of Pandemic

STATEC has just published a report on consumer habits in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Luxembourg.

According to this report, lockdown measures have strongly impacted the purchasing behaviour of consumers in the Grand Duchy.

Towards the start of the pandemic, in March 2020, the sales volume of food products increased by 35% compared to the previous year, although food prices remained rather stable during the health crisis, with the exception of fresh fruit and vegetables. In August 2020, a second peak in sales volume emerged, with an increase of 17% compared to the same period in 2019.

Before the pandemic, the volume of rice and pasta sold was below the level of the previous year, before doubling in March 2020 (compared to March 2019). It then fell to a level well below that of 2019 (down 34% in April, down 25% in May and down 23% in June), while the sales volume for pasta and couscous returned to its 2019 level in April 2020. From June 2020, pasta sales again exceeded those of the previous year.

The sales volume for canned goods (meat, fish and seafood, vegetables, fruit) increased less sharply in March than for rice and pasta (up 28% year-on-year) and returned to a level similar to 2019 from April. Non-alcoholic drinks showed a similar development, with an annual increase of 22% in March 2020 followed by a decrease in the following months. In August 2020, sales of non-alcoholic beverages again rose sharply compared to the same period of the previous year.

According to STATEC, this spectacular increase in sales volume from the first two weeks of March, just before lockdown, clearly showed that consumers stocked up on these foods in anticipation of the health crisis. In the months that followed,  sales volumes suddently returned to 2019 levels, or even lower. An increase in sales volume for products such as flour, oil, salt, spices and culinary herbs reflected a growing trend of cooking at home, as restaurants closed and teleworking became the norm. 

Similar to neighbouring countries, one of the most coveted products was toilet paper. In Luxembourg, sales volume increased by more than 130% in March compared to the same month a year earlier. Sales remained higher than in 2019 in April before dropping to 7% in May 2020.

Other non-food items also experienced strong variations during lockdown, especially products considered essential in the fight against the spread of coronavirus, such as thermometers (sales volume up 260% in March over one year). 

STATEC based its analyses in this report on checkout data ("Scanner Data") up to October 2020.