From hand sanitizer and toilet paper to yeast and hair clippers: Here's how Americans' spending habits have changed after weeks staying at home

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From hand sanitizer and toilet paper to yeast and hair clippers: Here's how Americans' spending habits have changed after weeks staying at home
grocery store coronavirus

Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

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Assistant store manager rings up groceries from behind a plexiglass barrier in Los Angeles, California.

  • Americans' shopping patterns have evolved over the past weeks while staying at home during the coronavirus outbreak.
  • Nielsen data stretching back to the beginning of March reveals how their priorities have shifted.
  • While hand sanitizer and toilet paper were among the first products to see huge sales spikes, shoppers are now also buying lots of baking yeast and hair clippers.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Americans' spending habits have evolved as the coronavirus outbreak continues and most of the US gets accustomed to life under stay-at-home orders.

Hand sanitizer, soaps, and aerosol disinfectants were among the first products to see spikes in sales when the coronavirus began to threaten the US at the beginning of March, according to Nielsen data. But as the outbreak has waged on, other products like baking yeast, spiral hams, and men's hair clippers have also gotten a boost.

Nielsen took total US dollar spend - both online and in-store - into account when compiling its data.

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On its page highlighting its coverage of the outbreak's impact on consumer behavior, Nielsen outlined six different phases of spending related to the outbreak, starting with "proactive health-minded buying" and ending with "living a new normal." It placed the US and many other countries at stage five, which it called "restricted living" and defined as having severely restricted shopping trips and issues with online fulfillment and pricing.

Here's how American consumers' buying patterns have changed since the beginning of March, according to Nielsen:

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Hand sanitizer, aerosol disinfectants, and other cleaning products were among the first to see sales spikes.

Hand sanitizer, aerosol disinfectants, and other cleaning products were among the first to see sales spikes.

According to Nielsen, sales of hand sanitizer shot up 470% for the week ending March 7, compared to the same week a year ago. On March 10, Target CEO Brian Cornell announced that the retailer would limit the purchase of disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizers, and hand and face wipes to six per customer. Other retailers, including Walmart and Costco, have implemented similar rules.

Then, people started panic buying toilet paper.

Then, people started panic buying toilet paper.

Sales of toilet paper were up 212.7% for the week ending March 14, compared to the same week a year ago. Retailers included toilet paper among the essentials for which they would limit purchases.

Hand sanitizer was also still an incredibly popular buy, with sales up 207.5% over the same week a year prior. Shelf-stable food items like beans and powdered milk products also saw big spikes in sales.

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Sales of baking yeast popped later in March.

Sales of baking yeast popped later in March.

Baking yeast saw a huge increase — 647.3% — in sales during the week ending March 21, compared to the same week in 2019. It's likely many Americans were looking to baking to fight boredom or to spend time with family. Manufacturers ramped up production to meet demand, Business Insider's Hayley Peterson reported.

Shoppers snapped up spiral hams as they prepared to celebrate the holidays at home and to cook more often than they might have otherwise.

Shoppers snapped up spiral hams as they prepared to celebrate the holidays at home and to cook more often than they might have otherwise.

Sales of spiral hams spiked 622.1% the week ending March 21 and 413.1% the week ending March 28, according to Nielsen. They were up 424.4% the week ending April 4.

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Americans who had been home for weeks realized it was time for a haircut.

Americans who had been home for weeks realized it was time for a haircut.

Sales of men's hair clippers surged 166.2% the week ending April 4 after rising 101.7% the week before, compared to the same weeks in 2019.

"You see more beard trimmers and hair color and things like that. It's interesting to watch the dynamic play out," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said on the Today Show on April 10.

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