Canada’s largest pension fund says some of the “radical changes” in consumer behaviors enforced during the pandemic lockdown are here to stay.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s thought leadership lab sees permanent changes to consumer behavior as a result of the global pandemic. The era after Covid-19 will be defined by wider adoption of e-commerce among older consumers, as well as by long-term impacts on health-care and privacy policy, all of which will impact investment portfolios, it says.

“The world will be different after Covid-19. For long-term investors, this will mean both new risks and new opportunities as we transition to recovery,” CPPIB portfolio managers Caitlin Walsh and Ruby Grewal wrote in the report.

Gains in adoption of e-commerce have been patchy, according to the report. While the U.S. and Europe appear to be rapidly catching up to China, not all merchants are reaping the benefits with big players like Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. having enormous advantages over smaller retailers with more limited selections and unscalable infrastructure, Walsh and Grewal said.

The pandemic’s impact on different demographic groups will change how older and younger consumers approach the use e-commerce, “Older consumers, anxious to avoid crowded public spaces for health reasons, now say they plan to increase e-commerce adoption across all categories, while younger consumers, restless after months of lockdown, indicated a building desire to return to stores for more discretionary categories,” they wrote.

Read more @Bloomberg