During virus crisis, PH shoppers search for Wi-Fi adapters, essentials – report

MANILA, Philippines – With the coronavirus quarantine in full swing, many appear to be turning to the internet to help adjust to the new normal.

In this regard, Filipinos with money to spend are searching not just for essentials, but also for items to cope with the crisis of staying at home.

A recently-released analysis by meta-search website iPrice.ph saw search impressions increase for a number of items aside from food or COVID-19 essentials, such as medical face masks, vitamins, and thermometers.

According to its report, the following items received a significant number of increased impressions from March 13 to 30, 2020, as compared to November 13 to 30, 2019:

• Wi-Fi adapters – 597%
• Kid’s outdoor pools – 518%
• Canned Food – 412%
• Biscuits – 310%
• Facemasks for skincare routines – 236%.
• LAN cables 150%
• Bicycles – 97%
• Gym dumbbells – 80%

Additionally, cleaning supplies also had large increases in the number of impressions in the same time period.

Searches for the Domex brand of disinfecting multipurpose cleaner increased 1,097%. Disinfectant spray Lysol had 721% increased impressions. Meanwhile, products with bleach – such as Clorox, Ariel, and Tide – grew by 172%. 

Coronavirus essentials 

The iPrice.ph report also said the interest in buying medical face masks of little interest prior to the coronavirus, save for the time Taal volcano erupted and brought about ashfall. It added the prices for medical face masks – including 3-ply surgical masks and n95 masks – rose by nearly 86% from January to March.

Meanwhile, impressions for hand sanitizer searches surged by 2,207%, thermometer searches increased 1,295%, search impressions for hand soaps also went up 989%, while search impressions on vitamins grew about 123%.

Limitations

While the iPrice.ph report numbers were obtained by “aggregating thousands of product pages of more than 100 online merchants through https://iprice.ph/ on Google Analytics,” the report did not list specific numbers for how many initial searches were made in November 2019 to compare to March 2020. 

The price increase of medical face masks, in turn, was obtained from its average price on the product pages of the iPrice platform on the given times. – Rappler.com