Retail shopping today is fantastically complex, perhaps more so than ever before.

Marketing and consumer insights teams are hard-pressed to keep up with how consumers are responding to today’s challenging economic conditions, market trends, and competition. Time is of the essence – even armed with high-quality market research from survey panels, consumer preferences can change at the drop of a hat. Strategies that perform well today may not tomorrow, leaving retailers scrambling.

It’s clear that better, more sophisticated and comprehensive tools are needed to help brands track and predict consumer behavior. With the CivicScience InsightStore, brands large and small are empowered to stay competitive by engaging with consumers across the web in real-time. Our rigorous ‘always-on’ methodology means users get up-to-the-minute shopper insights. And our user-friendly, AI-powered platform is designed so that retailers can quickly turn insights into consumer-centric strategies that get results.

Here are three top consumer shopping trends derived from the InsightStore:

Trend 1: Most Americans Cutting Back on Retail Spending, Except for Gen Z

While economic conditions are causing many Americans to tighten their retail spending habits, Gen Z adults (18-24) expect to increase their retail spending. Weekly tracking shows that as of this week, Gen Z adults plan to spend more on clothing, household products, and hobbies and gifts in the next month. On the other hand, expected retail spending has fallen across the board among the Gen Pop.

Trend 2: Buy Now, Pay Later Services Grow In Popularity

An increasing number of Americans are becoming aware of buy now, pay later services to finance retail purchases. Likewise, many are adopting these services – rising at a faster rate than those uninterested in using BNPL – from 21% in Q3-2022 to 24%. In fact, recent data show a growing number of lower-income shoppers are using them to finance grocery purchases.

Trend 3: Social Media Influencers Wield Increasing Power to Drive Purchases

Data from March show a six-point increase from 2022 in people who follow influencers on social media. Among influencer followers only, nearly 1-in-5 (19%) say they’ve made a product or service purchase in the past six months as the result of an influencer promoting it on social media. That’s up from 18% last year.

Other current trends include how shoppers are spending online versus in-store; how brand values factor into purchasing decisions; the rising relevance of digital ads; and the influence of tax season on retail spending.   

CivicScience and the InsightStore can help retailers gain a deep understanding of where these and many other trends sit among their brand and target audiences. Ready to see how? Let’s chat. 

CivicScience helps retailers to:

+ Stay ahead of rapidly changing consumer preferences
+ Track and navigate disruption from challenger brands 
+ Visualize a 360-degree view of consumers through demographic, behavioral, cultural, & other contextual metrics
+ Quickly and easily gain insights and turn data into compelling presentations
+ Stay current with how consumers are using mixed reality (MR) technology 

Our clients include:

“CivicScience surfaced the one game-changing insight that our army of analysts, consultants, and agencies couldn’t find.” 

– David Feick, VP of Insights, T-Mobile