Online shopping takes off in Hong Kong as residents scramble to stock up on basic necessities during the COVID-19 pandemic and supermarkets struggle to keep up with the demand. Edith Lu reports from Hong Kong. 

For nearly three months, Stella Wang has lived with 108 rolls of toilet paper in her tiny 226-square-foot apartment after snapping them up online after the coronavirus pandemic hit Hong Kong. It’s one of her most valuable commodities, along with face masks and sanitizers, as she and other panic-stricken residents hunker down for what could possibly be a tough, protracted fight against the coronavirus.

The four large boxes of toilet paper rolls would take up more than half of her living room if they were to be placed on the floor. To avoid using up her apartment’s limited space, Wang had to be creative when finding places to stuff them — under the sofa, atop the water heater, in a suitcase.

“There are still half of them left after I tried to use them up and gave a lot to friends,” the 27-year-old insurance company employee said. “But I have no regrets at all. They’re indeed a precious possession.”

The pandemic has greatly changed the pattern of consumer behavior, at least for the short term. People were in the dark as to what would happen next, and survival was crucial

Dai Xianchi, associate professor at the Department of Marketing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong

Toilet paper became a highly sought-after item in Hong Kong as the city braced itself in February for a surge in COVID-19 infections, with shoppers emptying supermarket shelves of the product while also hoarding face masks, disinfectants and liquid soap.

Wang recalled that at that time, the panic buying resembled a gold rush, and it would be a matter of pure luck if one could find even one roll of toilet paper in a supermarket or convenience store. So she had to go online for these items, which had to travel hundreds of kilometers from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong.

“The pandemic has greatly changed the pattern of consumer behavior, at least for the short term. People were in the dark as to what would happen next, and survival was crucial. They were spending more on essential items,” said Dai Xianchi, associate professor at the Department of Marketing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The total value of Hong Kong’s retail sales sank 36.1 percent in April from a year ago. While sales of most categories declined, only the sales of commodities at supermarkets bucked the tide, surging 14.4 percent. Basic necessity categories, such as fresh food, drinks and groceries, which can be consumed at home, were the hottest items amid the pandemic.

At the same time, online shopping has accelerated as people were left with no choice, having been confined to their homes, said Pascal Martin, partner with OC&C Strategy Consultants. “They’re driven by necessity as they can’t or seldom went out, and many were trying out online grocery shopping for the first time.” He said that the past four months has probably seen greater progress in the e-commerce sector in Hong Kong than it has in the previous four years.

Local e-commerce site HKTVmall saw its orders hitting a record HK$531 million (US$68.5 million) in March — up nearly two and a half times from the HK$229 million for the same period the previous year. The volume retreated slightly to HK$492 million in April, but was still up 156.3 percent year-on-year. Its number of customers making online purchases jumped to 373,000 from 206,000.

“It means people are not only buying more each time, but also more people are buying daily,” said Steven Kwok, associate partner at OC&C Strategy Consultants.

Orders placed with overseas platforms have also gone up from the start of the year, according to cross-border logistics company 4PX Express. The volume of orders shipped from Japan to Hong Kong, mostly masks, rose sevenfold compared with pre-pandemic levels, while that from the mainland to Hong Kong soared nearly 200 percent.

Imke Wouters, partner of retail and consumer goods practice at Oliver Wyman, said the surge in overseas online shopping has been partly driven by a lack of online offers from local e-commerce platforms.

She expects e-commerce players in Hong Kong to leverage the growing consumer demand to improve their online offers while keeping the much-needed retail spending as much as possible.

“Consumers always prefer one-stop shopping and services even when they’re buying online, so that they can choose platforms with diversified offers ranging from garments to food,” Dai said.

Retailers in the city have been responding quickly to consumers’ changing needs. Han Zhi, director of retail at Swire Properties, said he has not found any of their tenants plan to close offline outlets and turn to online completely at the moment, but many of them are offering omnichannel experience — a multi-channel approach to marketing, selling, and serving customers. Travel retailer Cdf Beauty at Citygate Outlets under Swires has been operating an online sales platform on WeChat from February.

“It’s all about balance — merging online and offline experiences,” Han said.

But the crucial question is: From stockpiling toilet rolls to shopping online, how many of these behaviors will still be with us once restrictions start to lift and the economy recovers from the aftermath of the pandemic?

A recent survey by Ernst & Young (EY) showed that consumers will treat time, talent and natural resources as equally precious in the post-pandemic world. A third of the respondents strongly agreed they’ll reappraise the things they value most and not take certain things for granted. More than a quarter said they’ll pay more attention to what they consume and what impact it has.

“I believe 80 percent of a person’s consumer behavior is fixed, and the remaining 20 percent will shift with the changing environment,” Dai said.

With e-commerce very much in vogue, those who have tried it for the first time during the pandemic and found it convenient will shop online for at least some of their purchases, including bulky items like pet food, rice, toiletries, bottled water and other drinks, said OC&C’s Martin.

Whether the majority of consumers will keep their online shopping habit will depend on how merchants seize the opportunity and explore their needs, a spokesman for AlipayHK — the Hong Kong arm of Hangzhou-based tech behemoth Alibaba Group’s online payment platform — told China Daily. 

The digital-payment service provider has been at the receiving end of growing inquiries about digital payment methods from merchants in recent months.

“It is easy for newcomers to get addicted to shopping online. Once they’ve developed the habit, it’s impossible to get rid of it immediately,” Dai said. He sees those used to reject e-commerce with concerns about privacy now are more likely to stay.

As with many of the shocks encountered in life, people are in a mood to pause and reflect. Today, social attitudes toward privacy have changed slightly, as people are more willing to make their personal information available if it’s for the good of society.

EY’s survey also found that 53 percent of consumers worldwide would make their personal data available if it can help monitor and track an infection cluster.

It said companies have to consider how increased consumer positivity around sharing data will benefit their business models.

HKTVmall has said it plans to build an open data bank platform to share data related to sales transactions, user traffic, logistics and warehouse performance with merchants, suppliers, partners and academics.

Contact the writer at edithlu@chinadailyhk.com