Consumers see this retailer as providing the most bang for the buck

As concern over prices, especially for food, grows, more than half of consumers turn to one retailer to save money.

According to the newly released ninth wave of the dunnhumby Consumer Pulse Survey, 54% of U.S. respondents say Walmart provides the best value for the money by 54% of respondents, an increase of 25 points from September 2021. Aldi (18%), Kroger (10%), and Amazon (10%) finished in the top four for best value. (The survey was conducted from January 25, 2022, to February 8, 2022, just past the peak of the spread of the Omicron variant.)

Walmart is getting this recognition as 51% of U.S. respondents are concerned that their money doesn’t go as far as it used to due to rising prices, marking a 10-point increase since September 2021, and a 12% increase since May 2020. Perhaps most concerning for retailers, according to dunnhumby, is that U.S. consumers surveyed reported that the food inflation rate now stands at 17.7%, when in actuality it stands at 7.4%, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (The latest Consumer Pulse survey was conducted from January 25, 2022, to February 8, 2022, just past the peak of the spread of the Omicron variant.)

Other highlights from the survey are below.

• U.S. consumers are now more worried about rising food prices, the economy, and their own personal finances than they are with getting COVID.
• Only 39% of U.S. consumers surveyed are satisfied with the in-store shopping experience, a 3% drop since September 2021. And only 36% of respondents felt stores are doing a good job with COVID-19. However, fewer than one in five (13%) respondents is worried about COVID-19.
• Thirty-three percent of U.S. respondents have ordered more online since Covid-19 began. Fifty-five percent of respondents made at least one online shopping trip during the week they were surveyed, up 17% since March 2020. Consumers also reported they make an average of one trip per week using click-and-collect making that channel as popular as delivery.
• Americans’ worry about the pandemic is at an all-time low (13%) and 20 points below consumers’ worry in Chile, the country with the highest Worry Index.
• The majority of U.S. consumers (58%) believe the economy is weak, a three-point increase from September 2021, and the same percentage from February 2021. And 40% of consumers continue to report their own finances are weak, consistent with the prior two waves of the dunnhumby study in 2021.

The University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index for the first half of February also indicates inflation is dampening consumer enthusiasm. The index fell to 61.7 — its lowest since October 2011 — from 67.2 in January. The impact of higher inflation on personal finances was cited by one-third of all consumers, with nearly half of all consumers expecting declines in their inflation adjusted incomes during the year ahead, according to the report.

“Americans’ belief that food prices are rising more than twice as fast as they actually are should concern retailers, manufacturers and the government alike,” said Grant Steadman, president for North America at dunnhumby. “We not only see this mismatch between sentiment and reality in the U.S., but also in every country we surveyed. Consumers are now more concerned with their finances and the country’s economy than they were five months ago.

“We need to revise our thinking about how consumers consider inflation. Likely, we have not yet seen the full extent of how consumers will react to food price increases. This could diverge further, particularly if the security situation in Europe worsens and further impacts energy and commodity prices globally.”

For the nine waves of this study, dunnhumby surveyed 64,827 respondents online in 23 countries: Asia (Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand), Europe (Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, United Kingdom), Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico), and North America (United States, Canada), between March 2020 and February 2022. Approximately 400 individuals were interviewed in each country for each wave of the study.