Shipping delays, material and container shortages and manufacturing challenges have led to ongoing supply chain slowdowns and inflation-fueled cost increases in recent years. Today’s supply chain issues are global in nature, upsetting a broad range of industries and having significant effects on businesses and customers.
To gauge the impact of recent disruptions in inventory and product availability, YouGov polled 19,000 consumers from 18 global markets to understand how they’ve adapted their shopping behaviors.
Across the world, close to a quarter (23%) of global consumers say they have been unable to find a product that they needed to buy between May and August. The data reveals that some regions are more likely to notice product shortages than others, specifically people who live in Australia (39%), the US (38%), Great Britain (37%), Canada (31%) and Mexico (25%).
The research also addresses consumer reactions to price volatility due to supply chain disruptions and limited inventory as well as the lengths consumers are willing to go to in order to get the products they need most.
What emerges are three key changes to purchase behaviors: