With the confinement going on for more than a month, SIBS continues to share data from the Multibanco network, which gives a clear view of the change in Portuguese shopping habits in the COVID-19 pandemic. After a phase in which purchases were made mainly in supermarkets and hypermarkets, pharmacies and parapharmacies, beverages and tobacco, in the last week the weight of these sectors has decreased and now represents only 65% ​​of total purchases.
According to the figures shared by the entity that manages the Multibanco network, in the week of April 20 to 26, physical purchases continued to grow and reached the highest value in the last five weeks. The average value spent per purchase is 38.1 euros, and is below the previous average, while for online purchases the average value rose to 40.6 euros, above the average of the previous week. SIBS notes, however, that "the average values ​​per purchase in the week of April 20 to 26 continue to be considerably above the average of the period before the pandemic: in the physical channel the value is 10% higher and not 8.3% higher online".
Even so, variations in consumption are not significant. "Looking at the average of transactions on the MULTIBANCO Network and online in Portugal, the variations in the week of April 20 to 26 were not very significant, keeping the consumption patterns of the Portuguese people practically unchanged", SIBS said.
In comparison with the previous week, there is a slight increase of three points in the average purchase in all physical channels. As for online shopping, the shopping average remained unchanged for the week of April 13-19. If the parallel is established with the period before the COVID-19 pandemic, in-store purchases again represented around half of the average, while in online purchases the global average was 15 points below the average value recorded between January 1 and January 1. March.
Online shopping with more MB Way
The use of the MB Way payments application is growing with the pandemic, also driven by the campaign that highlights its advantages in contactless payments. This week saw the highest use of MB Way in physical purchases since the State of Emergency was declared in Portugal, 10 percentage points above the average recorded before the first case of COVID-19 in Portugal.
In online shopping, the average number of transactions with MB Way was also the highest, with 15 points above that recorded before the start of the pandemic, and 8 points more than in the week of April 13-19.
In ecommerce, SIBS indicates that the biggest growth compared to the period before the pandemic continues to be Entertainment, Culture and Subscriptions (57%), Catering, Food Delivery and Take Away (53%) and Food & Retail (44%) ). "In the week of April 20 to 26, these three sectors together with those of Farm & Pharmacy, Perfumery & Cosmetics, Games & Toys and Decoration & Household Items, represented 54% of online transactions in Portugal, one percentage point below the week of April 13 to 19 ", indicates the company.
Editor's Note: The news has been updated with more information and graphics
