CONSUMER SPENDING

Kantar Media’s TGI surveys in ROI and NI provides insights into consumers’ attitudes towards their spending:

•  “Value for money” is the most important deciding factor when shopping for 52% of consumers in ROI and 48% in NI.

• The number of consumers naming “low price” as the most important factor has risen by 40,000 in Northern Ireland and just over 100,000 in the Republic. Currently, around a third of consumers in each market believe this to be the most important factor.

• The importance consumers place on value for money and low prices is strongly felt in the Irish clothing sector. Here, consumers’ average annual clothing spend has fallen from €301 in 2009 to €268 in 2011.

• 18% of adults in NI and 16% in ROI consider their clothing budget to be “very important to them”

• In Northern Ireland, 32% of shoppers spend over £100 on groceries in an average week. In the Republic, 34% of consumers spend over €150 on groceries in an average week.

The attitude statements in TGI can be used as indicators into how consumer spending patterns have evolved over time. In both markets, the data suggests that consumer confidence remains lower than pre-crisis levels:

• In ROI, the proportion of adults claiming to “spend money more carefully than I used to” has risen dramatically from 64% in 2007 to 82% in 2011.

• There has also been an increase of over 20% in the proportion of consumers in ROI who “look for the lowest possible prices when I go shopping”.

• As a result, there has been a significant rise in the proportion of consumers claiming to be “very good at managing money” – from 48% to 57%, while those “spending money without thinking" has fallen by over a third to just 16%.

• In Northern Ireland, there has been a fall from 66% to 59% in the proportion who believe that “it is worth paying extra for quality goods.”

• Retailers in NI should also take note that the proportion of consumers “always looking out for special offers” has risen from 55% to 64% in the past five years.

More detailed information on consumer spending can be found in a recent article published in the IMJ, which is available on the TGI website.

Source: ROI TGI 2007 – 2011 and NI TGI 2007 - 2011