Key trends and changes of Russian consumers behavior identified by PwC in the Global consumer insights survey 2019:

• Rapid growth of online shopping. There is strong increase of online shopping in key categories, mostly driven by young millennials with high income living in Moscow and St Petersburg. Fast delivery becomes as important for consumer as prices and assortment when they choose a particular retailer. Creating online channel and connecting it with in-store shopping experience become crucial for development for most of product categories. Following the migration of consumers to mobile devices, retailers should provide consumers with easy-to-use mobile facilities and expand the delivery network of lockers and pick-up points considering the traceability of deliveries. Russian consumers develop strong interest in adopting online grocery shopping. 54% of consumers are likely to purchase grocery online over 2019. Two main barriers for e-grocery shopping are the desire to see and touch the products (67%) and concerns about quality (57%). Mobile internet audience in Russia has grown up to 56% of total adult population in 2018. 79% of Russian consumers use smartphones for online shopping in 2018. Daily shopping indicate 8% growth via mobile devices.
  Level of smart home voice assistants ownership is not quite high in Russia - only 8%. Although 27% of Russian consumers have a stake in purchasing a voice assistant. Currently 53% of consumers use voice assistant for searching products and 36% buy products via voice assistants. 
• Demand for both digital and human in-store experience. Russian consumers tend to do more daily microtrips to nearest stores. They enjoy new digital services in stores and indicate easy payment, customization and helpful assistants as key imperatives that improve their shopping experience.
• Growing influence of sustainability issues. Russian consumers care about sustainability and ready to pay premium for organic and local products with eco-packaging. They actively use online channels to learn about sustainable products before purchase
• Strong shift to digital communication channels. Communications market indicate a strong shift to digital channels with personalized content, despite the fact that TV advertisements remains valuable. Social media highly influence customers shopping decisions in different categories and has great power on consumer trust.

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