Spending intentions for 2010 (Jan 2010)

TNS Omnibus conducted a survey in conjunction with Marketing Magazine to investigate the appeal of January sales and claimed British anticipated spending behaviour for 2010. Click here to see the article that contains several results of the survey.

The survey ran to a representative sample of 1024 GB adults aged 16-64, conducted via OnLineBus 8th-10th December 2009. Click here to see the data from which the findings below were drawn. Note the findings below do not include the January Sales data.

Brakes put on 2010 spending

• Overall, 44% say they will aim to cut their spending in 2010
• More women than men claim they’ll cut back on spending in 2010. Almost half (49%) say they aim to cut back in 2010 compared to 40% of the men in our survey

Prudence is planned

• Of those saying they’ll cut back spending, 78% say it will include discretionary retail items such as clothes, shoes, gadgets, DVD’s/music/downloads, beauty products/toiletries, and toys
• Leisure and Social spending will also take a hit; eating out, going out to pubs/club and socially, cinema, theatre and culture outings, gym memberships – one or more of these areas also stated by 78% of those saying they’ll cut back spending in 2010
• Not surprising – economies will be sought in home-running costs for example by cutting down on utility bills, DIY, mortgage/rent, big ticket white goods items – 58% say their planned cutbacks will be one or more of these
• The amount spent on food and drink for home consumption will be trimmed back by over half (56%) of those who plan any 2010 cutbacks
• Bad news for the restaurant sector - highest score of the individual itemised areas amongst those who say they’ll cut back in 2010 is ‘Eating Out’ at 65%
• Travel and Transport costs will be trimmed by 39% of those planning to cutback
• 38% planning spending cutbacks say they’ll cut costs by cutting back on holidays
• A third (33%) of the total sample say they will cut back on going out to pubs and bars in 2010

Holiday plans scaled back

• Long haul holidays of a week or more will be put on the back-burner by some for 2010; overall, 17% say this type of trip was planned but has now been put off for financial reasons.
• 14% plan to say goodbye to a planned one week or more short haul holiday
• In fact, overall, 18% plan to scale back holiday plans in general for 2010

High ticket items postponed

• 15% are no longer going to buy the car/scooter/motorbike they had hoped to in 2010
• 13% will shelve planned home-improvements of £5,000 or more
• Just under 1 in 10 (9%) will put off a planned property purchase

2009 perspective

• Looking back on 2009, 44% seem fairly pragmatic about how the year was from a financial perspective - it was as expected. However, a similar proportion of 41% say it’s been worse than expected

Planned spending

We’ll still be spending money on……. (90% plus chance of buying/funding in 2010):

• Short haul holidays of a week or more (41%)
• Long haul holidays of a week or more (23%)
• Motor vehicles (18%)
• £5,000 plus home improvements (9%)
• Property (8%)
• A wedding (5%)

For a more detailed data set including cross analyses by full demographic and regional variables please contact Sue Homeyard.