Spending confidence rebounded across key generations in October—reverting to an improving outlook heading toward the December holidays—as hurricane and other weather effects subsided.
Millennials and Gen X led the confidence pickup, which are the two groups most likely to drive discretionary spending. These generations will support the better holiday expected by MacroSavvy™ (see forecast here).
Category differences will remain important to the outlook as noted below, although e-commerce spending will continue to benefit disproportionately over stores (see the related report here):
- Clothing. Confidence to spend improved most in this category with key differences by generation. See report below for more.
- Electronics. Electronics also saw a better pickup in confidence to spend compared with other categories. For the key differences by generation, see the report below.
- Homegoods. This category lagged a bit compared with others, except for strength in a key generation. See the report below for more.
- Leisure goods. These goods—including sporting goods, toys, music, and videos—lagged all categories and especially among a key generation. See the report below for more.
- Food & grocery. This was among the strongest categories, especially among a key generation. See the report below for more.
- Health & beauty. Confidence to spend lagged in health and beauty, but confidence diverged among key generations. See the report below for more.
These are among the takeaways from data through October from the Spending Confidence Index™, which is the proprietary index of consumer sentiment created by MacroSavvy™ based on data from Prosper Insights and Analytics™.
For more background about the Spending Confidence Index™ and its components, the white paper at this link explains why the new index is an improvement over existing measures of confidence.
Copyright © 2015-2017 MacroSavvy LLC. All Rights Reserved
