Aimee Look

Even though this consumer continues to be very aware.

of how expensive items are becoming, it's not necessarily meaning they'll pull all the way back.

It's just meaning that as a retailer, you have to fight harder for them.

You have to bring your A game.

Yeah, it's a really puzzling environment when it comes to consumers.

You have low consumer sentiment or low consumer confidence.

You have consumers in our survey telling us that they are pulling back on spend and that they feel prices over the next year are expected to go up.

And they're worried about it.

But then you look at the spending data and they are still spending.

So it's not really discouraging them.

What it's doing is making them much more strategic shoppers.

They're even more savvy than ever before now that they have the technology to support them and help with all of the decisions they have to make.

And in this hyper-competitive market, rather than experiencing decision fatigue, they're just getting savvier and still spending.

It actually is.

And not even just now, over the last couple of years, it's what I've observed.

I'm in a global role.

I'm based in London, but I monitor all of the markets.

And what I've seen repeatedly is, especially in the UK, consumers are so impacted by the cost of living crisis that they actually do pull back their spend and they're a more conservative consumer overall.

But in the US, even though they repeatedly articulate that they are aware of

of the cost of living crisis and just how difficult prices are becoming for them, they're still spending.