Shopper outlook 2025: The deep divide
17 June 2025How does income and life stage impact shoppers' future outlook?
Shoppers are acutely aware of rising bills, not least their shopping bills. Those that are better off can absorb these increases by making savings elsewhere, but those on low incomes are having to make much more difficult choices. We used our continuous ShopperVista data as well as bespoke qualitative and quantitative research to uncover what was on shoppers’ minds and how they are adapting their shopping habits.
The income and life stage divide
It’s not surprising that higher income earners are feeling more confident about the future than low income earners. However, middle earners are feeling squeezed, not benefiting from the rise in national living wage, and only feeling slightly better than those on low incomes.
Families are the most confident, partly driven by their higher level of trust in the food industry. Older post-family households are the most negative, feeling like they have less time to fix pension gaps.
Day to day worries are on different scales
Whilst those on higher incomes are more likely to be worried about saving money and long term financial planning, those on low incomes are living hand to mouth, concerned about keeping a roof over their heads and affording basic groceries. Only one in five expect to be better off in 12 months compared to nearly half of higher income shoppers.
Hope for the future?
Whilst there may be a lot of doom and gloom in the news, it’s great to see that younger shoppers are more optimistic, by some margin. In our qualitative research they were more pragmatic about price rises. Perhaps having not experienced adult life before the 2008 financial crash, they are less inclined to hark back to better days. If these younger shoppers take their attitudes with them as they age, could this mean the future is brighter than we are led to believe?
ShopperVista subscribers can access the full report which includes the impact of these insights on shopping habits and product choices, as well as our outlook for the future split by category.
If you’d like to know more, please reach out to me [email protected] or our AskIGD team at [email protected]