Consumer confidence takes a hit

ANZ-Roy Morgan’s Consumer Confidence survey has indicated that consumer confidence has dropped a great deal. Consumer confidence is now at its lowest since October 2020, dropping 8.1 points to 97.9. Consumer confidence is below the neutral level of 100 in all states except for South Australia. ANZ’s Head of Australian Economics noted that consumer confidence is usually high in the month of January and this is the lowest consumer confidence has been in January since 1992. 

The fall in consumer confidence can likely be attributed to a couple of factors such as the Omicron variant of Covid-19, the shortage of both RAT and PCR tests, supply chain issues resulting in food/other goods shortages in supermarkets, staff shortages and vaccine dose availability - all of which are definitely concerning for the Australian public. 

Some particularly concerning findings from this survey include:

• 25% of Australians stated they were ‘better off’ financially than they were this time last year, compared to a discouragingly high 30% that disagreed and stated they were ‘worse off’. 
• 13% of Australians expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next year as opposed to 29% that expect ‘bad times’ for the economy.
• 33% believed it was a ‘good time to buy’ major household items, compared to 39% that thought it was a ‘bad time to buy’. 

This leads us to wonder, is there anything businesses can do about this drop in consumer confidence, or do we simply have to ride out this slump and wait for confidence to rise? Unfortunately, when it comes to consumer confidence, there is very little you can do aside from essentially recession-proofing your business. You need to know that sales may drop and be prepared to handle that for some time. You may also want to flip your key messaging to your customers to make your business and the products/services you offer a necessity to your customers. You will also want to know/work on how consumers view your brand and your products/services. Do they trust and have confidence in you? If so, you may be well geared up to beat the stats on consumer confidence!