I am not alone. The pandemic has prompted a frenzy of online spending. Mintel’s January 2021 consumer behaviour tracker shows that 53% of adults are shopping more online now than at the start of the pandemic. Data from Barclaycard, published in July, found that Britons spent £40.6bn online on non-essential items during lockdown – about £770 a person. Takeaway food and drink were the most popular purchases, followed by clothes and plants…
Most of this shopping is due to boredom. “I have all this time,” says Jonathan O’Neill, 44, a furloughed retail worker from western Cornwall. For want of something to do, O’Neill has become what he terms an “investigative shopper”: he fills his days hunting for bargains online. “I never used to be like this,” he says.
O’Neill groans when I ask him about his purchases. “It’s all the cliched man things,” he says. “In the first lockdown, I bought a road bike – classic! I didn’t need a bike. I already had three. But it was on offer.” He has also recently bought a new TV – there was nothing wrong with the old one – and a £95 Carhartt sweatshirt, also on offer. O’Neill lives at the end of a small lane and delivery drivers often get lost dropping off parcels, meaning his neighbour collects them for him. “My neighbour leans out of the house and goes: ‘What’s in today’s box?’” he says.
