Post-COVID Consumer Spending in New York City

Online shopping surged in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerating the pre-pandemic shift toward increased online consumer activity. This trend fed into concerns over the success of top retailers at the expense of smaller ones. Further, it raised questions of whether consumers will increasingly opt for online retail, or make a return to brick and mortar businesses as pandemic restrictions ease. The JPMorgan Chase Institute analyzed the spending behavior of New York City residents throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This research explores how New Yorkers split spending on general goods and groceries across different purchasing channels (online/offline) and different retailer types (top retailers/other retailers). While New Yorkers drastically shifted their spending on general goods towards the top retailers online in the first months of the pandemic, this changed over the course of the rest of the pandemic. Moreover, important differences exist in consumer spending across product types. Such differences across product types suggests that firms, consumers, or neighborhoods may need supports tailored to specific sectors of the retail economy.