The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the global economy at an unprecedented scale since its start in early 2020. As consumers are spending more time at home, data shows that panic buying changed the demand for items such as hand sanitizer and toilet paper. The sudden nature of the changes related to COVID-19 purchase behavior makes it harder for marketers to respond effectively. As research on the topic of COVID-19 is starting to appear in the literature, there is not enough work in the area of consumer purchase behavior. In this paper, we utilize three real-time datasets to understand customer dynamics from March 2020 to December 2020 during the pandemic. We identify product categories that were the primary drivers of a sharp increase (decrease) in spending and the extent to which this increase (decrease) was maintained over time. We also shed light on stressors such as the number of COVID-19 cases and death by city and their impact on purchase behavior over time.