A lot has changed since the covid-19 related lock-down in terms of how and what consumers buy. With malls and shops temporarily limiting access, many consumers have shifted towards online consumption. In addition, many of us have moved some of our preferred activities to home, being fitness related activities and even eating/cooking. We were able to capture snapshots of these many changes on the OLX platform.
Here are the key changes on our platform that depict the overall changes within the Lebanese community
Increase in overall online traffic and page-views
Traffic (visits) has increased by around 12% on OLX only two weeks after covid-19 compared to previous times. While unique users have only increased by 2%, users have been visiting the platform more often and browsing through more pages
Explosive increase in buyers of sports equipment
Sports equipment has seen an increase of 180% in traffic and 160% in replies (calls or chats)! With gym memberships suspended, many seem to refuse to cut off their gym habits, especially before summer
Home Electronics and kitchen appliances have got their share too
Increase of 18% in demand metrics for kitchen appliances
Time of visit during the day
The time in which our users visit the OLX platform has changed noticeably. Day browsing has increased and a noticeable spike in traffic around lock-down time
Garden and outdoors
Just because people have to stay home, doesn’t necessarily mean “inside”. Many have browsed the “Garden & outdoors” category under Furniture, to have a piece of the outside, inside
Motorcycles
With the increase of deliveries and the odd/even plate number rule, it goes without saying that many individuals have shifted their attention to motorcycles, both as a mean of transportation and delivery. Motorcycle engagement with listings increased by 30% during lock-down
Musical instruments
Were there unexplored talents that came out during the lock-down? Maybe. The musical instruments sub-category grabbed the attention of many more users than usual, at around 18% growth
More mobile, less desktop
Traffic on web as a share of total traffic (App & Web) has decreased from 21% to 15%. Our assumption is that less people are browsing the web platform from work and are using OLX on their mobile more often
Diversification of category visits
Users are venturing into categories they have never visited before and are viewing on average 5% more categories than before. At OLX, there are around 108 categories to explore!
Animal and pet accessories
The demand for pet accessories has increased drastically since lock-down. Accessibility to shops is one thing, but maybe staying close to our beloved furry ones has made us more aware of their needs? We’ve seen an increase in traffic in this category by 78%
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