As Australians followed stay-at-home restrictions across the past few months, customers have adopted hobbies, skills and activities to flex their creativity and focus on wellness.

With more time at home, many also spent their time upping their cultural consumption - streaming movies and TV shows, listening to music and reading.

Here are some of the positive customer trends we’ve seen across the past few months.

1) Experimentation in the kitchen

Many of us took to the kitchen to bake, experiment and create.

The Ottolengi SIMPLE Cookbook and the Instant Pot Duo Nova Electric Multi-Use Pressure Cooker were among the most popular kitchen items amongst Australian customers between March 15 and May 15.

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2) Cultural immersion

Our time at home allowed for cultural exploration, with Australian content being as popular as content from Hollywood.

Our customers enjoyed spending time reading, listening and watching content from TV and films, to books and music.

Books

The top books on Amazon.com.au between March 15 and May 15 were:

1) A Bigger Picture, by Malcolm Turnbull

2) Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens

3) Normal People, by Sally Rooney

4) Bluey: Time to Play!: Sticker Activity Book

5) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari

Prime Video

The top five TV and films on Prime Video in Australia during April were:

1) The Test: A New Era for Australia's Team

2) Once upon a Time…In Hollywood

3) Tales from the Loop

4) Star Trek: Picard

5) The Grand Tour

Audible

We’ve seen an incredible response to Audible Stories (stories.audible.com), our new service that makes hundreds of titles in eight languages – most suitable for listening with children – available completely free of charge.

Top five audiobooks from March 15-May 15 were

1) Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon

2) A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson

3) Normal People, by Sally Rooney

4) A Bigger Picture, by Malcolm Turnbull

5) Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. by JK Rowling

Kindle

Harry Potter fans were avid readers during lockdown taking out four of the top five most popular read Kindle books:

1. Harry Potter & The Philospher's Stone

2. The Godfather

3. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows

4. Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets

5. Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban

Thousands of Alexa customers also used their time at home to learn a new language or improve their linguistic abilities with a 24% increase in language related utterances from March 31 through to April 30.

If you’re looking for inspiration on new content, Amazon Music, search for playlists on Amazon Music:

· To enjoy the best new music by Australian artists, just ask “Alexa, play Australia Now

· Looking for popular music to help you relax? Just ask Alexa, “Alexa, Play Acoustic Chill

3) Focus on fitness

During isolation we’ve been keeping up our wellness and fitness at home with workout equipment including Resistance Band Sets, TRX Training Packs and a Flywheel spin bike being the most popular fitness products for Australian customers between March 15 and May 15.

To add music to your work out, just ask “Alexa, play Workout Pulse

4) Taking to arts, crafts, and games

Customers have taken to traditional hobbies with UNO, Jenga and drawing stencils being amongst the top selling arts, crafts and games products for Australian customers between March 15 and May 15.

5) A time for home improvement

Spending more time at home, many of us noticed that our homes and gardens were in need of some upkeep.

Smart lighting, power tools and gardening equipment were among the top selling home and garden items for Australian customers between March 15 and May 15, showing as we stayed home, we tried our hand at do-it-yourself.