Our lockdown obsessions revealed

Australia’s fastest growing consumer electronics brand has nothing to do with the home office, according to a new report into our online behaviours during the pandemic.

Online streaming proved popular in 2020. (Photo by Olivier DOULIERY / AFP)

Australia’s fastest growing consumer electronics brand has nothing to do with the home office, according to a new report into Australia’s changing online consumer behaviour during last year’s coronavirus lockdowns.

The SimilarWeb Digital 100 Report found Manscaped – a male personal hair trimmer – saw 1376 per cent growth in 2020, while Sony (+339 per cent) and Victorian-based IT retailer Centrecom (+163 per cent) were the fastest growing electronics websites among Australian consumers.

The research found that home office and garden retailers surged, DIY beauty replaced salons, and parents turned to online toy retailers for children’s entertainment during successive lockdowns.

The three industry categories which experienced the highest growth last year were Home and Garden (67 per cent), Health and Beauty (+54 per cent), and Retail (+41 per cent) as Australians adapted to life in lockdown.

So-called ‘K Beauty’ emerged as an extremely popular trend with websites dedicated to Korean beauty products seeing incredible growth. Stylevana.com – a site specialising in ‘K Beauty’ products – grew more than 900 times in 2020, making it the fastest growing brand in the sector, while nudieglow.com, another K Beauty site, grew by 264 per cent.

And as people spent more time in front of the television, the online stores of informercial channels such as itvsn.com.au (+123 per cent) and globalshop.com.au (+293 per cent) also saw significant growth.

Overall, the Banking and Lending sector saw a 10 per cent increase in traffic during 2020. Only one of the big four banks (Westpac) appeared in the top 10 fastest growing brands in the category, securing eighth spot with traffic increasing 28 per cent.

The two fastest growing brands in the sector were customer owned and community-focused institutions, with Southern Cross Credit Union leading the way (+195 per cent), followed by Community First Credit Union (+129 per cent). Bank Australia, a customer-owned bank based in Victoria, secured seventh spot with 41 per cent year-on-year growth.

Emmanuel Heymann, SimilarWeb Vice President for Australia and New Zealand, said mid-tier banks received the lion’s share of traffic following last year’s interest rate cuts.

“Due to the RBA’s cash rate cuts announced throughout 2020, mid-tier banks saw 173 per cent surge in search visits from Home Loan, Mortgage, and Interest Rate-related search queries,” he said.

“On home loan-specific traffic growth, Macquarie Bank recorded the most substantial increase, growing 110 per cent since the emergency rate cuts announced in March last year.

The brands that came in at the top spot, by percentage growth, in each of the report‘s ten categories:

• Apparel — Youandall (+5024 per cent)
• Automotive — Mycar (+312 per cent)
• Insurance — Budget Direct (+33 per cent)
• Banking and Lending — Southern Cross Credit Union (+195 per cent)
• Universities — University of the Sunshine Coast (+873 per cent)
• Publishers — Channel News Asia (+276 per cent)
• Consumer Electronics — manscaped (+1376 per cent)
• Retail — Toymate (+318 per cent)
• Beauty — Stylevana (+92489 per cent)
• Home and Garden — elivingfurniture (+1225 per cent)

“Digital has well and truly become the primary way we engage as a society – whether that’s with friends and family via video conference, streaming entertainment, remote work and learning, or shopping online,” Mr Heymann said.