Consumers Are Shopping Less, Spending More

Consumers may be going shopping less often, but when they do, they tend to spend more, especially when making retail purchases.

According to PYMNTS’s research, the average amount consumers spent on retail, groceries, and food from restaurants rose last month, even as the share of consumers who reported shopping fell in those categories.

Inflation could be the culprit behind this increase in expenditures. The percentage of consumers who reported they shopped for groceries fell from 89% in February to 88% in March, while retail shopping dropped from 62% to 60%.

However, the average spending increased in March for each category: an $11 increase to $110 for groceries and a $24 increase to $103 for retail.

Restaurant purchases followed a similar pattern, although to a much lower degree, with the share of consumers who said they’d made a purchase at an eatery falling from 71% to 70%, and the average spend rising by one dollar to reach $40.

Travel made a comeback in March, with 19% of consumers purchasing travel services — a record high for this series of reports. The average consumer travel spend was $363, a lower amount than in past months.

While consumers seemed to prefer in-store shopping over other channels to purchase their groceries, they did use laptops and mobile devices to shop at meaningful rates.

A larger share of consumers used computers (8.5%) compared to mobile devices (5.5%) to shop for groceries online in March. Meanwhile, mobile device grocery shopping increased slightly, from 4.8% in February to 5.5% in March, while online grocery shopping via computer remained almost unchanged, nominally rising from 8.4% to 8.5%.

In terms of retail, 15% of sales were made via computers and 14% using mobile devices, with both channels showing similar percentages of sales over time.

To find out more about what consumers are spending their money on and the methods they use to pay for it, download The PYMNTS March “Digital Economy Payments Report.”