Covid Slashed Consumer Choices. This Is Why They Aren’t Coming Back.
The furniture retailer Malouf sells beds and bedding in a fraction of the colors it did a few years ago. Newell Brands, the Sharpie maker, has retired 50 types of Yankee Candle. Coca-Cola offers half as many drinks.
Covid slashed consumer choices as companies pared their offerings to ease clogs in the supply chain. The logistical mess is behind them. But many of the choices aren’t coming back.
Retailers and suppliers across industries—from groceries to health, beauty and furniture—have said that it didn’t pay to offer products for everyone, and consumers didn’t care that much when they stopped. “Today, people would rather lose a portion of consumer demand as opposed to spending extra on too much variety," said Inna Kuznetsova, chief executive officer of ToolsGroup, a supply-chain planning and optimization company. Macy’s president and CEO-elect, Tony Spring, told analysts in November that “the customer today does not want an endless aisle." New items made up about 2% of products in stores in 2023 across categories such as beauty, footwear and toys, down from 5% of items in 2019, according to the market-research firm Circana.
Shelf Engine, a technology company that automates ordering for grocery retailers, said large grocery stores have reduced fresh-food offerings such as fruit, dairy products and deli meats by 15% to 20%. Large grocers cutting back on choice is a reversal from prepandemic days, when they believed they had to carry everything to avoid losing customers to the store across the street, said Stefan Kalb, CEO of Shelf Engine. Kalb said that grocers are now saving money because they have fewer items to manage and that the slimming of product options is reducing food waste.
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