Consumer spending over the upcoming Black Friday sales
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Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. Now, this is Breakfast Business with me, Emmet Oliver, this Monday morning. It's great to have you along. Now, as we know, people are heading to the shops for the normal Christmas spending. But when exactly are they going to drop that money and on what? Well, we have a survey out this morning from PwC. They say that 73% of Irish consumers are planning to spend the same or less compared to last year. over the upcoming Black Friday sales weekend. Of course, we have Cyber Monday a few days after that. And here in studio with me is Ruth McNamee, who is the Director of PwC Retail and Consumer Practice, to tell us more about what's going on out there.
Ruth, good morning to you.
Morning, Emmett.
It's great to have you along. So you've looked at what type of spending, where they're going to do it. You know, what's the pattern versus previous years? And it seems the overall shape of this is we still love Black Friday. We still love Cyber Monday. We love all these big package retail events, but just the spending starting to slightly taper off in some areas.
Yes, that's true. So as you said, it's hugely popular, but we have a more cautious Irish consumer. So we have over 60% will still purchase over the Black Friday, Cyber Monday weekend.
What are the spending trends for Black Friday in Ireland?
However, 70% will spend less, the same or less than last year. The key reasons for spending less is because they've got less money. They're more cautious. And they also feel like the deals are less exciting than last year.
So do you get a sense that people will have a look, they'll go online, they'll go into the physical store, but they may just not spend anything. They'll have a peek, but depending on what's there and available.
Well, the large proportion are still intending to spend and what they're planning to spend on will be electronics, your adult clothing and health and beauty. And the one thing that has stood out this year is actually that they've planned that spend well ahead of time. So they're quite intentional in their spend. We've seen an increase in the number of people. So it's up to 24% planned their Black Friday spend in October. So we're seeing that stat rising year on year.
Now, obviously, when you make a purchase, there's all sorts of trade-offs going on. And one is the cost versus other concerns, sometimes sustainability and so on. It seems to be a subtle message in the survey results is that people are still looking at sustainability, but not quite as much. They may be just looking at price more so.
That's very true. So they're really trying to balance cost, affordability and sustainability. So one thing we have seen from the Irish shopper this year is that while sustainability is slightly slipping on the agenda, they are still trying to make those informed decisions. So the two actions that they are taking is they're buying what they need and they're also trying to avoid returns.
Now, it's a difficult thing to track in your survey, of course, but still the figures are very interesting. On average, Irish consumers plan to spend at least 283 euros over the sales weekend compared to 329 last year. That's 14% drop. I suppose what's difficult to know is, is it just they're staying away from Black Friday and spending it at other times of the Christmas shopping season? So it's difficult for you guys to track the exact trends.
Yes, it is. It's difficult to track. However, what we've seen across the year in speaking to both consumers and retailers is that the cost of living crisis is there. So people are feeling the pinch and we've seen inflation rise to 2.9%. So they are looking for better deals. What I think is interesting in this stat is if you look at what the consumers who plan to spend more, is they're spending more on Black Friday because they're trying to cut down on their Christmas spend.
Okay, so if anything, yeah, it could actually amplify the thing more that they're not going to be seen as much once this is over, right? The other one is to balance out online versus the bricks and mortar store.
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