The Consumer conditions scoreboard 2023 aims to monitor the consumer environment across the EU 27 member states plus Iceland and Norway.
Its main data source is the Consumer conditions survey.2022, a representative survey of consumers held in October and November 2022 for the account of the European Commission by IPSOS
In a context of multiple crises, data have also been selected from other sources in order to provide contextual information.
EIGHT KEY EU LEVEL FINDINGS
• Personal finance and consumer confidence have been significantly impacted in 2022 by the higher cost of living: 37% of European consumers report that they have dipped into their savings. An increase in the take up of short-term consumer loans towards the end of 2022 (with total credit card lending up 12% on an annual basis in November 2022) coincided with record low levels of consumer confidence.
• Most consumers have adapted their habits to cope during the energy crisis. Faced with high energy bills, 71% of consumers changed their behaviour in order to save energy at home, while 28% adjusted their usage of transport.
• The COVID-19 crisis is still in the mind of travellers among whom more than 40% prefer late bookings.
• Despite high levels of awareness of the need to act in order to contribute to the green transition and tackle climate change, 43% of consumers say environmental considerations did however not influence their purchasing decisions. Some 20% of consumers, on the other hand, report that they took into account the environment for all or most of their purchases in 2022. These proportions have not significantly evolved since 2018. This may be related to the cost-of-living rise but also to factors such as higher suspicion about the fairness of green claims.
• The majority of EU consumers purchased goods or services online in the past 12 months (71%) similar to the proportion in pre-Covid-19 time. Purchases are mostly made from retailers and providers that appear to consumers as being based in their own country.
• The share of consumers raising concerns about online targeted advertising is very high: 94%, unchanged when compared to 2018. The most reported worries are about inappropriate use and sharing of personal data (70%), collection of online data and related profiling without explicit knowledge or agreement (66%) and the installation of cookies (57%).
• Pressure selling via persistent sales calls or messages is the most frequently encountered unfair commercial practice, experienced by 44% of EU consumers.
• A high number of consumers (76%) trust that traders respect their consumer rights and this level of trust is similarin the majority of Member States. This is despite a quarter of consumers reporting they experienced a problem when purchasing goods and services in the past 12 months. However, this must be seen in the context of high levels of satisfaction in after sales assistance provided by businesses expressed by consumers. Trust in public authorities and consumer organisations is more even in the various EU countries and very much aligned to general perception levels for public bodies within countries.
Online consumers are exposed to frequent unfair practices and have privacy concerns
From a list of ten possible problematic online commercial practices, eight were experienced by more than half of consumers: 76% has been personally targeted by online advertising, 75% experienced hidden advertising in search results, and 69% had come across reviews that did not appear genuine (Figure 18), as the three most frequent problematic practices.
When asked about important concerns in relation to online advertising, consumers are mostly worried about the use and sharing of personal data (70%), the collection of online data (66%), while the next most common concern, shared by 57% of respondents, was the installation of cookies (Figure 19).
Read the full report at commission.europa.eu
