The COVID-19 pandemic has made cleaning and disinfecting our homes more relevant than ever before. But how has the home cleaning market changed as a result? 

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the latest insights from the home cleaning industry generated from Revuze’s consumer insights platform. To obtain these insights, we analyzed review data from leading retailers Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart, Target, Lowes, Kroger, and Dollar General in the US. Let’s dive in.

Leading Home Cleaning Brands in 2021

According to our research, Lysol was the most discussed brand in the disinfectants category in 2021, with 3,071 reviews. It also held the most positive sentiment score with 75%. 

Other brands that performed exceptionally well were Clorox and Microban, which had a positive sentiment score of 75% and 73%, respectively. 

Overall, in the entire disinfectants category, there were 9,147 reviews, an overall sentiment of 72%, and an average star rating of 4.23. Not bad!

Customers’ Home Cleaning Preferences

The topics that customers bring up in their reviews can reveal a lot about what they’re thinking about and want from a given product, brand, or industry. 

When it comes to cleaning products, our research revealed that smell is the most discussed topic and a 5-star driver. According to customers, the best-smelling products are Windex’s Multi-Surface Cleaner, followed by Lysol’s Neutraair Disinfectant Spray and Microban’s 24-Hour Multi-Purpose and Disinfectant Cleaner. 

What kind of smells do customers like and dislike? Generally speaking, reviews reveal that customers want products that have a mild, fresh, and clean scent. On the other hand, they want to stay away from any products with a strong chemical scent.

Surprisingly, cleanliness is only the 4th most discussed topic in customer reviews of home cleaning products. It’s also a 4-star driver. When it comes to effectiveness at cleaning, customers want products that don’t leave streaks or scratches on the surface and don’t have that harsh chemical smell. Soft Scrub’s Antibacterial All-Purpose Cleaner is the leading product in this category.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Home Cleaning Industry

As you can imagine, the COVID-19 pandemic had a noticeable impact on the home cleaning industry. Discussion around disinfectants rose from 26% to 32% during COVID-19. Afterward, it dropped back down to 25%. 

Interestingly, sentiment around disinfectant products saw a steady decline before, during, and after the pandemic, dropping from 73% to 66% to 63%. This may suggest that, as people needed them more, they became more critical of disinfecting products. 

In terms of topics, the most-discussed aspect of disinfectant products also changed as a result of COVID-19. Pre-COVID, it was stains and mold. But post-pandemic, it changed to germs and bacteria. Makes sense, right?

As for surface cleaners, the most discussed topics across all three periods were performance and price/value for money, with ease of use and cleanliness driving 5-star reviews.

Learn More With Revuze

Cleaning and disinfecting our homes has become a top priority in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it’s done more than just make home cleaning products more popular. It also changed sentiment and affected the topics that customers discussed most.

Companies manufacturing and selling home cleaning products can better understand and meet customers’ needs by keeping up with the latest insights – like the ones above – to be found in customer review data.

The insights we discussed in this blog post were generated with just a couple of clicks through the Revuze platform, a market research tool that enables you to quickly analyze large amounts of customer review data to gain a better understanding of customer desires and feedback.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Revuze can help you stay on top of consumer preferences and adapt your strategies to stay ahead of the competition, check out our website.

Florence Broder