The economy continues to disrupt consumer spending patterns, according to a new survey from PriceGrabber, a shopping comparison site. Even before the recent news of continued high rates of job loss in June, consumers were telling PriceGrabber surveyors that they are planning to cut back spending more than they were planning to six months ago.
67% of respondents to an online survey of 3,156 consumers who had shopped at a PriceGrabber merchant in June said they are planning to trim their spending compared to 57% who said so in January.
In a bright spot, relatively speaking, for online retailers, fewer consumers said they are cutting back online shopping vs. offline: 47% are cutting back online and 63% offline.
But if consumers’ intentions matter, retailers will have a tougher time getting sales even once the economy improves. 77% of respondents said their spending habits had changed as a result of the recession and 90% of those said their spending habits have changed permanently. That’s up an astonishing 19 percentage points since March.
The computer and Internet have become indispensable to a great majority of survey respondents. 84% said their personal computer is a necessity not a luxury, and 69% said the same about high-speed Internet connections. That compares to 69% who could not live without their TV and 44% who said the same about cable/satellite TV connections. Interestingly, there was not huge variation in those numbers by gender or age.
Back...
