(NewsNation Now) — In 2020, Americans baked their own sourdough bread and burned off the carbs on their Pelotons. It was a time for whipped coffee and at-home workouts, for taking up new hobbies and putting others on hold.

As time progressed and the pandemic’s toll on daily life ebbed and flowed, so did people’s interest in the things they once held dear in the days of their first lockdown.

Here’s a look at the pandemic spending habits that turned out to be temporary fads, and those that have withstood the tests of COVID-19.

Fun while it lasted

Google searches for “Tiger King,” and “Animal Crossing” — pastimes that dominated the public sphere at the start of the pandemic — peaked in March and April of 2020, but died down soon after.

The same is true of the instant coffee used to make the aesthetically pleasing whipped Dalgona coffee drink that went viral on TikTok. It hit a Google Shopping peak in April-May 2020, but hasn’t seen much traction since.

And after misjudging the staying power of an exercise-at-home trend that propelled Peloton sales early in the pandemic, the company is replacing its CEO, cutting jobs and reining in ambitious expansion plans.

Peloton’s shares surged more than 400% in 2020 amid COVID-19 lockdowns that made its bikes and treadmills popular among customers who pay a fee to participate in Peloton’s interactive workouts. But nearly all of those gains were wiped out last year as the distribution of vaccines sent many people out of their homes and back into gyms.

Other consumer trends that were already established could be on their way out, said Martin Block, a professor in Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.

Brand loyalty, for example, doesn’t seem to be as important to consumers, he said. That’s in part because of the rising popularity of streaming services, which eliminate traditional commercial advertising. A larger shift toward online shopping also introduced people to reviews and star-rating systems that better informed their purchasing decisions than brand-loyalty alone.

“When I’m looking at products on the screen, I will have stars or something like that, relative to the product, and I will bet consumers are paying more attention to that than the brand,” Block said. “Where, if I’m in a grocery store looking at the shelf, I don’t have that.”  

But on a larger scale, some consumer habits born of the pandemic are here to stay, Block said.

Here to stay

Block researches pandemic consumer behavior and says that preferences for things like online shopping, grocery delivery and streaming services have more staying power than other trends.

“I think the patterns and the habits are becoming more ingrained, is probably the word to use,” Block said. “And I don’t see the retail environment going back to the way it was pre-pandemic.”

Some businesses, such as Canada-based Kensington Market Sourdough, have benefitted from the pandemic’s push toward online shopping and the enthusiasm native to communities with a shared niche interest.

“It was like being hit by lightning,” the store’s owner, Ben Pettigrew, said.

Pettigrew conducts most of his business through platforms like Etsy and Shopify, where he established his business’ online presence in August 2020. He now ships internationally, and although business isn’t where it was at the beginning of the pandemic, it certainly isn’t suffering, he said.

Perhaps it’s the satisfying end product, the excuse to unplug from the internet, or a drive to feel more connected to our food, but the web traffic spurred by COVID-19 brought business that lingered, he said.

“In my youth, the small towns would have a little independent shop that would just do one nice thing. And that was something that happened, it doesn’t really happen now,” Pettigrew said. “So I feel like this is a modern version of that.”

And in Golden Valley, Minnesota, where the local Animal Humane Society saw a surge of adoptions early on, interest might have leveled out but relinquishments remain at or below pre-pandemic levels. The nonprofit operates largely on donations and despite staffing shortages, remains busy, said Graham Brayshaw, director of veterinary medicine at the Animal Humane Society.

“We didn’t know when things hit what it’s gonna look like next year and the year after, and we’re in decent shape, which I’m happy to share,” Braytshaw said.