Impending climate doom isn’t the only reason UK consumers have had to question their purchasing habits. Little more than two years into a global pandemic, consumers now face one of the worst cost-of-living crises in decades with things expected to get worse in 2023.
Such crises always have an impact on consumer habits and, in the digital age, the queries users type into search engines. The peak of the coronavirus pandemic was the strongest example we’ve seen of this where search trends rocketed overnight – in some cases, only for a short period but, in others, having a long-term impact on search habits.
Instead of simply searching for “restaurants”, people moved from searching for restaurants that offered takeaway services to those with outdoor seating. Later, as the world started opening up again, travellers had to search for plane tickets with refund policies and travel insurance with cover for Covid-19 disruption.
Now, the cost of living crisis is the top concern for consumers in the UK and it’s already having an impact on search and consumer habits.
Cost of living replaces Covid-19 as top concern
Over the past few years, the biggest disruption list to data to consumer habits has been the Covid-19 pandemic. However, this has dropped down the list of consumer concerns in 2022 with economic factors and the invasion of Ukraine causing significantly more concern now.
According to a survey carried out by McKinsey, rising prices are by far the top concern for consumers right now and consumers in the UK are particularly concerned when compared to other European nations.
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These concerns will have an impact on how to get started with noorani qaida online classes for kids consumer purchases and how they use search engines. We saw this throughout the first two years of the pandemic, as shown by Google’s Year in Search 2021 report.
With consumer attention focused on economic uncertainty, we’re seeing the cost of living crisis have a similar impact on search behaviours. As shown by this analysis from HR software provider Ciphr, searches for “cost of living” in the UK increased by 1,590% between August 2021 and August 2022.
At the same time, searches for “interest rates,” “petrol prices,” “energy bills” and “food prices” have all increased over the same period. Meanwhile, separate research shows searches for solar panels have increased by 334% this year, as energy bills reach record highs, while searches for “how to reduce energy bills,” “apply for a loan” and “food banks” are all drastically increasing.
UK consumers pulling back on non-essential spending
Naturally, the cost of living crisis will affect belgium business directory everyone to different extents but nobody is immune when interest rates, energy bills and other essentials reach record highs. As a result, even people in a relatively strong position to deal with economic uncertainty may be questioning their purchase decisions in the year ahead.
If the pandemic is anything to go by, people will continue to spend money but how and where they spend it could change significantly.
In the McKinsey consumer report we mentioned above, participants say they’re experiencing price increases across most or all of their expenses.
Among the respondents, Millennials and Gen X said they are most likely to “scale back” their lifestyle and buy fewer products/services as a result of the cost of living crisis. The report also shows people are putting less money into savings and spending more on energy, transport, food and other essentials.
As a result, people are spending less money on non-essentials like eating out, jewellery, clothing and plenty more.