England finds itself in uncharted territory with the pandemic. Despite surging Covid-19 cases, the government has pressed ahead with ‘freedom day’   and all legal coronavirus restrictions have been lifted.

Retail Week has teamed up with Walnut Unlimited to ask consumers how they will behave as restrictions end.

After 16 months of constant restrictions on behaviour once taken for granted, the government has lifted all Covid restrictions, including the wearing of face coverings and social distancing.

While today is a day many have been eagerly waiting for, it comes at a time when cases in the UK have been surging and, despite the vaccination effort mostly keeping death rates low, hospitalisations have also been increasing. 

Because of this, it appears that consumers are going to continue to be cautious, with 77% of the 2,000 respondents to our survey saying they will continue to wear a face-covering in some or all public spaces.

Breaking that data down: 56% of respondents said they would wear masks in some public spaces such as shops, hospitality venues and on public transport, while 21% said they would wear a mask in all public spaces.

In terms of age brackets, 82% of people aged 55 and older said they would continue wearing face coverings, as did 77% of 18-to-34-year-olds and 73% of 35-to-54-year-olds. In terms of the gender breakdown, 80% of female respondents said they would continue wearing masks, compared to 75% of male respondents. 

Walnut Unlimited research director Amy Nichols said: “As wearing a face mask has been the norm for well over a year, we see most respondents happy to continue this behaviour – we call this the continuation of status quo bias.”

Safe spaces

In terms of which public spaces respondents would continue to wear masks, over 64% said they would wear one on public transport, 60% in shops and 52% in enclosed shopping centres. 

Correspondingly, 55% said they would feel unsafe with mask-wearing not being enforced on public transport, while 42% of respondents said they would feel unsafe in a shop if the retailer was not enforcing mask-wearing. 

Unsurprisingly, given the disease impacts older people more severely than younger people, older respondents were more likely to say they would feel unsafe in public spaces without some form of mask enforcement. 

Nichols said: “Younger people are less likely to get severely ill from Covid-19. They are likely to be less worried about Covid-19 so show less intent to wear a mask.”

High street rebound

As restrictions end, it seems consumers are going to look to continue to shop more locally, as many are expecting a gradual return to working in the office.

When asked where they would be shopping after July 19, 47% of respondents said they would shop on local high streets, compared to 45% who said they would shop more online.

By comparison, 32% of respondents said they would shop more at shopping centres, city centres and retail parks. 

Nichols said customers looking to return to the high street was “encouraging” and many will look to pair this with continued online spending. 

The data also shows that older, more affluent shoppers will be most likely to shop locally, while younger shoppers are more likely to visit shopping centres or city centres. 

“The high street is still valued by shoppers who are older and more affluent. Yet younger shoppers are more enticed by the experience of shopping in malls or city centres where there is more variety of shops, restaurants and other experiences,” said Nichols. 

In terms of returning to working from the office, the data paints a broad spectrum of customers’ behaviour. Ten percent of respondents said they had either already stopped remote working or had returned to the office from July 19. 

By comparison, 4% said they would return to the office within a month, 7% within three months and 5% within six months. Four percent of respondents said they expected a return to the office next year, while 7% said they would never work full-time in the office again.