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NEWS MINTEL’S ‘QUICK WAY’ TO UNDERSTAND AND COMPARE GLOBAL CONSUMERS Mintel has launched Mintel Global Consumer, a new research tool that is said to allow brand owners, marketers, and suppliers to quickly understand and compare consumer attitudes and behaviours across the world’s 35 leading consumer markets. According to Mintel, the biannual survey of 35,000 people offers brands a rich source of information about what drives consumers and influences their choices for food, drink, beauty, personal and household care – across the markets that generate a claimed 85 per cent of global GDP. Mintel Global Consumer, says the company, can help businesses grow domestically and internationally by helping them understand consumer behaviour, sentiment, and demographics across the world. Mintel Global President of Research and Insights Julie Lizer describes the new research tool as an “incredibly powerful innovation”, empowering Mintel’s clients to understand what consumers want and why in the 35 most important consumer markets. “It gives them the dual ability of big picture comparisons on a global scale, while also enabling them to understand what makes consumers different from market to market,” she said. “Whether brands want to expand internationally or strengthen their core market positions, Mintel Global Consumer will keep them ahead of the curve. Our new research tool can help companies break into new territories by understanding what drives consumer behaviour in a specific market, while also enhancing their knowledge of which global trends can be applied to their local market. “By utilising the tool’s demographic capabilities, brands, marketers and suppliers can also more effectively understand key consumer groups and so create segmentation strategies to target them with greater accuracy.” AUSSIES TURN TO BNPL IN THE WAKE OF PANDEMIC Over 70 per cent of surveyed Australians are more conscious of their spending now than in pre-Covid-19 times with many taking to buy now pay later (BNPL) services, according to new research commissioned by Openpay. The research of 1,000 people living in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane found that 61 per cent of surveyed Melburnians and Sydneysiders have limited themselves to ‘essential spending’ only, compared with half of those living in Brisbane. Spending that is considered ‘essential’ right now is said to be “largely consistent” across the three cities, as is the use of BNPL services, with 60 per cent of surveyed Australians using BNPL to take care of their families and their pets’ health. Thirty-one per cent of respondents are using BNPL to service their cars, with one in 10 using a BNPL service to pay for education and groceries. This, says Openpay, follows an increase in the use of BNPL services since the start of the pandemic, with the report revealing that nearly a quarter of people who held BNPL accounts in Melbourne and Sydney only started using them since the Covid-19 outbreak. Thirty-one per cent of respondents reported having at least one BNPL account, and of these, around a third held more than one account. Overall, it’s those in Melbourne that are financially the hardest hit, says Openpay, which could be due to the current lockdown restrictions, with 38 per cent of them stating they had used their BNPL service within the past week, compared with those in Sydney (32 per cent) and Brisbane (24 per cent). Nearly half of respondents in Melbourne (45 per cent) shared that they use it weekly or more often, versus over a third in Sydney (34 per cent) and Brisbane (22 per cent). One in three of those surveyed believe they will be back to pre-Covid spending habits within the next six months, while around another third think it will take six to 12 months. One fifth of those surveyed think it will take one to two years. 16 CONVENIENCE WORLD SEP/OCT, 2020