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Reflecting Ireland: An insight into consumer behavioural change in Ireland

30 August 2021


The past 16 months in a global pandemic, has led to great upheaval and profound changes in human behaviour in Ireland and around the world. Navigating change is always a challenge, but especially at a time like this.

Permanent tsb and Kantar’s Reflecting Ireland research series looks at how consumer behaviour is changing in Ireland. This first report focuses on consumer savings trends, intended consumer spending over the coming months and macro-economic consumer sentiment. Our research reveals much about how Irish people are feeling and behaving. Decision-making during times of uncertainty is more challenging than in normal times, which is why we have also partnered with Behavioural Scientist Claire Cogan of BehaviourWise to understand what may be driving the behavioural trends identified in this research and how the pandemic is influencing our financial decision-making.

  • Our research identified that our top savings goals reflect a balance between protecting our future financial wellbeing and improving our day-to-day lives. Irish consumers tend to save for “a rainy day” – nearly half (49%) express this as their motivation for saving. It seems that as a nation, we like to “keep something in reserve”, as we never know what may be lying around the corner.
  • There is evidence that we are looking forward to releasing the purse strings to some degree but only circa a quarter of new savings (27%) will be spent over the next few months.
  • This reflects pent up demand, however with the remainder being held aside, have consumer spending habits been broken? This conservative level of spending may be a concern for local businesses in our communities. It does raise the question whether or not businesses need to do more to attract consumers and encourage spending in the coming months.
  • Economists hope for a splurge in spending over the coming months to fuel economic growth but given the level of uncertainty that still prevails, our findings reflect a cautious approach; a desire to treat ourselves in the short-term, balanced against a desire to build financial security over the medium-term.
  • Examining consumer sentiment at a broad level, we are quite polarised about the Macro economy – a more or less equal number believe it will improve (37%), compared to 36% who feel it will disimprove. We are in neutral territory in terms of our future economic outlook.
  • Taking a step back from the micro and macro financial situation, we also sought to find out how people are feeling emotionally. Our personal mood in 2021 is also quite polarised – over half (53%) express positive sentiments compared to 47% being more downbeat.

You can check out our full #ReflectingIreland report here.

The content of this blog does not constitute advice and is for general information purposes only. Readers should always seek professional advice before relying on anything stated in the blog. Some of the links above bring you to external websites. Your use of an external website is subject to the terms of that site.


Reflecting Ireland Articles

23 May 2022

Reflecting Ireland: An insight into consumer behavioural change in Ireland – Cost of Living

We take a deeper look at the cost of living and its impact on our day-to-day lives.

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04 Jan 2023

Reflecting Ireland: Looking forward to 2023

In this special edition of Reflecting Ireland, we look at how people view their lives on this island, what concerns them, and what hopes they have for the future.

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14 Dec 2022

Reflecting Ireland: Top tips to keep your New Year resolutions

Claire Cogan of BehaviourWise delves into behavioural science to find how to help ourselves stay on track of our New Years resolutions

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25 Aug 2022

Reflecting Ireland: An insight into consumer behavioural change in Ireland – Community

We investigate how people here define community, what they do to shape it, and the factors they think help to make our communities stronger or weaker.

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