According to a recent study by online savings platform, BravoVoucher, UK shoppers are among the least savvy in the Smart Shopper Index.
The study analyses consumer habits and is based on the household savings, debt, purchase consideration, overall spending relative to cost of living and food spending relative to cost in all European countries.
The study found that people in the UK are more avid spenders than they are savers, ranking us 20th out of 25 countries for smart shopping habits. It was found, that on average, people in the UK spend almost as much as they earn, saving just a measly 1% of their disposable income.
That said what we equally scored poorly on was our overall spending habits, except for when it came to food. Here the UK is ranking third for the savviest food spending habits, relative to cost.
You may be thinking that we will have made up for our shortfalls by shopping online, however it was found that the UK’s third most popular search term was for discounts within the food and drinks sector. This is mostly reflected by our behaviour in using services such as Uber Eats which sees on average half a million searches every month.
Despite our “burning a hole in our pocket mentality” we search for saving 24 million times in an average month which is double the amount the Germans are searching for and not too far behind our European neighbour, France.
Unfortunately, in this instance the French have been crowned the top country for smart shopping whilst Poland was marked as last place.
It was found, that fashion is one of the top shopping categories in four of the seven countries analysed, when it comes to looking for savings and discounts.
Overall as much as we want to be savvy consumers both on and offline we do still enjoy spending money without the need to hunt for discounts, offers or savings. In the coming months this could well change as the country begins to pick up from the pandemic.
