Less is more. That’s the mantra of today’s post-recession consumer.
Shoppers are back in the stores and ready to start spending again. But they’re hanging on to recession-friendly habits and spending differently than they did before the downturn.
Those are the conclusions of an analysis of Canadian shoppers to be issued Monday by the Boston Consulting Group. The research is part of a larger report entitled New World Order of Consumption, in which the consulting firm probed the psyche of more than 12,000 consumers across 14 countries, gauging consumer sentiment and buying intentions.
The results are prettier than they were a year ago. They show Canadians still are faring better than consumers in other developed markets. But they also show signs of stress.
Case in point: Thirty per cent of Canadians feel they’re in financial trouble or financially insecure. That’s down from 36 per cent a year ago, and better than in Europe (34 per cent), the United States (36 per cent) and Japan (40 per cent).
“It’s still alarming,” Cliff Grevler, partner and managing director of Boston Consulting in Toronto, says of the survey results. “We’re not out of the woods yet. Many Canadian consumers have structurally changed the way they consume.”
Amid an improving economy, consumers are slow to take their foot off the spending brake. They’re shopping around for deals, heading to discounters and trading down to cheaper items and private labels. They’re also putting off major purchases and scaling back on non-essentials.
That, in turn, is forcing businesses to respond with new strategies, from Sears Canada Inc. tweeting deals to customers and expanding its deferred financing plans, to Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. pumping out extra savings for its rewards program members. Packaged-goods powerhouses such as Procter & Gamble Co. are racing to cut prices of everything from Tide detergent to Pampers diapers to pry open shoppers’ wallets, even at the expense of profit margins.
A shopper browses the Men's Zone isle at a Shoppers Drug Mart in Toronto
“We’re doing what we have to do price-wise to stay price competitive,” Robert McDonald, P&G’s chief executive officer, told investors last week.
