MOSCOW, April 1. /TASS/. The demand of Russians for dumbbells and yoga mats increased 6-folds, and in general for sports goods - by 60% in the last week of March amid self-isolation due to the spread of coronavirus in Russia, according to a study of Bery marketplace.
"In general, the demand for sports goods over the past 2 weeks has grown by more than 60%. The peak in demand for the category fell on last Saturday," analysts said. In their opinion, this may be due to many Russians transitionning to remote work and an off-work week from March 30 to April 3. "The average bill for the sporting goods category over the past two weeks has not exceeded 3,000 rubles," the study said.
Russians were most interested in exercise equipment and fitness products. Most often, they ordered dumbbells, discs and bars at Beru platform - interest in this category from March 14 to 28 jumped almost 6 times. Resistance bands were in the second place - the number of orders over the past two weeks has grown by almost 5 times. At Avito online market, dumbbells and barbells were also in the greatest demand, where supply has grown by 2% since February and demand by 38%. According to the service, yoga mats added 30% in popularity and home cardio machines (treadmills and ellipticals) became 16% more popular.
"All fitness centers have recently closed and this caused the first wave of demand for home fitness and sports equipment, the second wave of demand came with a self-isolation mode, when people practicing running and other outdoor sports temporarily lost this opportunity. First, the demand was for yoga mats, free weights (barbells and dumbbells), treadmills and ellipticals," Managing director Goods and Services at Avito Alexey Kurakin said.
In addition to sports equipment, a lot of orders fell on the category of sports nutrition. At the same time, Beru analysts recorded a decrease in demand for pre-workout complexes, creatine, amino acids and other nutrition, which is usually used by athletes training in fitness centers.
In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. To date, more than 850,000 people have been infected worldwide and over 42,000 deaths have been reported.
So far, a total of 2,777 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 190 patients having recovered from the illness. The country’s latest data indicates 24 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public informed about the coronavirus situation.