For roughly the last 18 months, lockdowns have become a common thing to expect about life in a global pandemic.
As lockdowns currently apply to three Australian states and territories, with various other COVID-19 related restrictions in place across the rest of the country, shopper behaviour continues to be influenced in all industries.
For the liquor industry, understanding how this new normal impacts purchasing and consumption trends will be key to success both in the short term as restrictions continue, and in the long term, to aid wider industry and economy recovery.
Realising the importance of this, Retail Drinks Australia has teamed up with partner Five Growth, to present a free webinar for the industry – Liquor in Lockdown.
“We are delighted to confirm that next Tuesday 7 September, Retail Drinks and Five Growth, one of our data and insights partners, are pleased to be hosting a shopper and consumer insights ‘Liquor In Lockdown’ webinar which we are making available to all of industry,” said Michael Waters, CEO of Retail Drinks.
“We look forward to offering our members sophisticated access to shopper and consumer insights through our ongoing partnership with Five Growth, and we would encourage all interested parties to attend next week’s free webinar to learn about the latest trends around Australia’s purchasing and consumption habits during lockdown over the last 12 months.”
Five Growth Director, Andrew Nowicki, told National Liquor News what retailers can expect from next week’s event and said: “They’ll get an understanding of the consumer behaviour behind the shopping behaviour.”
Five Growth Director Mel Anderson added: “I think all retailers know from their sales results that they had a good year in 2020/2021, but what they may not know is exactly why, and therefore, is that sustainable? So we’re going to unpack the why, and if you understand the why you can start to piece together the potential future.”
Through its Growth Scope platform, Five Growth has been recording and measuring consumer and shopper attitudes, behaviours and choices when it comes to the consumption of beer, wine and spirit based beverages. With data recording from June 2020 onwards, the platform can track and compare the realtime performance of a range of key areas over lockdown periods, making it as close to the pulse as possible. These are the types of insights Five Growth will present during the webinar.
Nowicki said: “This opportunity is for anybody involved in the liquor industry… Because what we’re going to unlock and unpack is an understanding of occasionality and how that occasionality can impact consumer behavior from a shopping perspective and a consumption perspective. And if we understand occasionality, we can understand how a change in occasions can manifest in a change in behavior in the future as well.”
After the event, Retail Drinks members will have the added bonus of a free insights report.