Examining consumer behavior during COVID-19 using near real-time consumer transaction data

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has rapidly grown from a localized health issue to an international pandemic. The shutdown of retail, restaurant, and travel industries threatens the economic livelihood of millions of Americans.

At DemystData, we have access to multiple datasets and data products that track US consumer behavior, demographic profiles, and geo-location details. We are using as much data as we can to help understand which sectors are being impacted the hardest and will continue to monitor the virus’ impact over the coming days and likely months.

Much has been reported by the media about the direct impact of coronavirus on the US economy but few sources have been aggregated in a way that tells a more complete story and ties together what we know about the virus, such as who it impacts and how quickly the impact is perpetuating at a more granular level.

Demyst recently brought a new product to market that consists of over 10 Million anonymous US Consumers and tracks Consumer spending for the prior 60+ months by way of debit cards both in-person and online that can be batch analyzed multiple times per day. While the true identities of the consumers are unknown, the 4-digit year of birth, time-stamped transaction date, merchant names, and the best known domicile geo-location of each consumer is provided and can be used in wise ways; especially to dig deeper into behavior prior to and during a pandemic such as COVID-19.

The CDC continues to declare that COVID-19 affects us differently depending on our age. Using the panel year of birth attribute we organized the panelists by the PEW Research Generations so that we can more closely tie insights to what the media has been reporting regarding age groups and corona susceptibility.

This first exhibit considers the in-person spending across the Top 100 US merchants by generational cohorts for a fixed panel of consumers and also adjusts the calendar days to like days of the week year over year (2020 is a leap-year):

As you can see from the chart, Generation Z (18yrs — 22yrs old) has continued to outspend their March 2019 amounts even as the pandemic has intensified during late March 2020. This data also suggests that Millennials (23yrs — 38yrs old) have exhibited mostly positive year over year in-person spending throughout the month of March. It’s also interesting to see that even as of March 30, 2020 (where this data ends), the year over year total across all generations is still markedly positive at +9.8%. It is important to note that the consumers represented in this panel are predominantly “Mass Market” consumers and can be characterized as those who earn between approximately $40,000 and $80,000 per year.

We at Demyst will continue to use our vast collection of data to continue reporting on COVID-19 related insights. Stay safe out there!!!