Of the 312 searches undertaken in Google Trends, those with the fit terms ‘sizing’, ‘advice’, ‘help’, ‘tool’ and ‘scale’ did not return enough data to be included. Similarly searches including ‘footwear’ as a footwear term and ‘kid*’ as a child term also did not have enough search data to be reported by Google Trends. Our total number of searches included was 44 and this was a minimum of five for each footwear style. The date outcomes form Google Trends for each footwear style and the key dates for national retail closures and school term dates (Fig.
1) and key outcome comparisons are presented (Fig.
2). The equivalent median data for the styles for each pandemic year alongside statistical outcomes are presented in Fig.
3.
The immediate influence of COVID-19 was quantified in the eight weeks of initial lockdown (Fig.
3a). Searches were higher during the pandemic than the year pre-pandemic for baby (median 56.5 IQR 33.5 v 14.5 IQR 8.8,
p = .017), infant (median 42.3 IQR 33.8 v 0 IQR 0,
p = .012), toddler (median 56.8 IQR 33.7 v 0 IQR 3,
p = .012) and child (median 55.8 IQR 38.3 v 5.5 IQR 10.3,
p = .017) styles (Fig.
3a). However, searches related to school styles were reversed (median 11.2 IQR 6.3 v 2.8 IQR 4.3,
p = .012), likely due to schools being closed for an undetermined amount of time during the pandemic year (Fig.
3a). The on-going influence of COVID-19 was explored by comparing the year pre- pandemic, the year of the pandemic and the year post-pandemic during the first eight weeks of each year, when retail was open pre- and post-pandemic (Fig.
3b). The year post-pandemic, searches were significantly lower in volume than pandemic year, back to pre- pandemic levels in baby (
p = .002), infant (
p = .001), toddler (
p = .002) and child (
p = .002) styles. For school styles however, searches remained elevated post-pandemic and did not return to pre-pandemic levels (
p = .368) (Fig.
3b). We also explored the eight weeks of search data leading up to children returning to school (second week of September 2019, 2020 & 2021). Data from the pandemic year (median 44.2 IQR 38.2,
p = .006) and the post-pandemic (median 39.3 IQR 46.8,
p = .001) year showed elevated levels of search terms compared to the pre-pandemic (median 21.2 IQR 25.3) year (Fig.
3c).