![]() consumer panel revealed that consumers whose everyday work and lives were more affected by major trends like digitization, urbanization, and global change have a greater need for emotional grounding. For example, farmers markets provide products that hail from a well-defined location nearby, that are grown and sold by real people that customers can build a personal connection with, and that often were grown in more traditional ways or that are of some traditional, heirloom variety.Ī survey we conducted with a representative U.S. Customers have a need to feel grounded, and they do so by buying products that connect them to place, people, and past. As digitization and globalization have made our social and work lives become increasingly virtual, fast-paced, and mobile, more and more people are coming to feel that they have lost their emotional moorings. What’s driving all this? In a recent paper, we argue that these trends spring from a growing need among consumers to feel grounded. These trends are surprising when considered against the backdrop of globalization, digitization, and modern society’s penchant for technology and innovation. Meanwhile Etsy, the online marketplace for handcrafted products, reported an impressive 81.9 million users and 10.3 billion USD gross merchandise sales worldwide in 2020 (Etsy 2021). We see it in the food sector, in the form of growing farmers markets, rising demand for artisanal bakery products, the locavore movement, and the return to traditional grocery brands during the Covid-19 pandemic. Current marketplace trends suggest that many consumers are seeking products that are local, are manufactured by real people, and traditional or at least remind customers of their childhood.
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