Research and Markets Adds Report: UK C2DE Consumer Market Assessment 2014

Research and Markets has added the "C2DE Consumer Market Assessment 2014" report to its offerings.

In a release, Research and Markets noted that report highlights include:

The changing landscape of C2DE consumers' buying and spending habits has been particularly notable in the food and drink sector, where discount grocery chains have been moving in and threatening the heretofore unchallenged market dominance of the major grocery multiples. Almost three in every five C2DE consumers shopped at discount grocery retailers such as Aldi or Lidl, while over three in five regularly bought food and drink from supermarkets' own-brand value ranges.

In the homeware and home improvements sector, the majority of C2DE adults (over 70 percent) continued to do most of their home decorating themselves. The fate of this sector is heavily linked to the fate of the property market in the UK, which has suffered in recent years since the financial crisis.

The healthcare sector of this report is not one as heavily engaged in by C2DE consumers as is the case for ABC1 consumers, with the often prohibitively high costs of such products and services deterring consumers who have the National Health Service (NHS) free for them at the point of use. Only 5 percent of all consumers in social grade E had health and medical insurance, for example, compared with almost a third of those in social grade A.

Over half of C2DE consumers bought clothes from discount retailers such as Primark over this period, a similar figure to the percentage of C2DE consumers who had bought clothes from supermarkets' clothing ranges. Budgetary constraints coupled with the desire to still remain as on trend' as possible, particularly among younger consumers in these social grades, has seen the rapid rise in popularity of fast fashion, sold through stores such as Primark, H&M, Zara, etc. which provide consumers with their fashion fix both quickly and cheaply.

For the future, with positive economic fortunes predicted for the next 5 years, the authors believe that consumer confidence will continue to grow. However, with the current Government's budget cuts continuing to bite, particularly on the welfare budget which forms a larger part of the income of C2DE consumers than it does for ABC1 consumers, C2DE consumers may not see their wealth increase in line with economic growth. This could dampen their willingness and ability to spend on goods and services. Indeed, it remains that less than half of C2DE consumers believed that their financial situation will improve in the 2 years between February 2014 and February 2016.

Report information:

http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/6d69b7/c2de_consumer

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