Getting ready for 2025: what our latest Consumer Pulse tells us about the 12 months to come

by Siro Descrovi

They say that in the winds of change, we find our true direction. Will that be true for Europe’s retailers during what could be a blustery 2025? That remains to be seen. What we do know, though, is that a series of fast-moving trends promise to reshape the continent’s retail landscape over the next 12 months.

There are the strong tailwinds, for instance, pushing us towards growth and stability: renewed consumer confidence, AI acceleration, a stabilising global economy, and more than 70 countries with newly elected governments. But there are headwinds, too, pushing us back and threatening progress. Global conflicts continue, the threat of tariffs looms, and commodity prices continue to rise.

How might shopper behaviours change in response to these forces? Our latest Consumer Pulse report offers some clarity.

Consumer confidence continues to rise

As we head towards the final weeks of 2024, the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) shows some returning stability in the general outlook. Compared to the long-term average of 100 points, figures from September 2024 give us an average of 99.55 across France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and the UK. Although still slightly below average, these figures show that optimism continues to grow.

The trends highlighted by our Consumer Pulse reiterate this, with fewer respondents stating that “food prices today are a lot higher than they were a year ago” in all five countries. Customers in France, Spain, and the UK are all less likely to feel their money doesn't go as far when shopping, too. These changes may be incremental, but the fact they continue to follow an upward trend is encouraging.

Is what was once a cost of living crisis now simply becoming “business as usual”? It’s early days, but the signs are there.

Climate change worries are hitting new highs

Bearing in mind the extreme focus on “value-seeking strategies” that we’ve seen in recent editions of the Pulse, one thing that jumps out in our latest round of research is that getting the best prices on their groceries is no longer the first (or even second) most pressing concern for shoppers. Instead, the primary worry is now the environment, with 55% of respondents saying they’re concerned about the impact that climate change may have on their grocery shop.

Climate change seems to be a particularly pressing worry for parents under the age of 54. And that demographic—which typically includes millennials, Generation X, and younger boomers—does, of course, have significant spending power.

Concern about our environment is hardly surprising when you consider the bigger picture. A recent survey of UK residents, for example, showed that almost 80% expressed concern about climate change[1]. It’s not really a huge leap to imagine how this high-level public awareness and anxiety about environmental issues might translate into concerns about something like grocery shopping.

Our Consumer Pulse data backs that up—but what’s important for retailers here is that a deep concern about environmental issues also leads to excitement about potential solutions.

Excitement drives spending

Shoppers are genuinely invested in tackling the changing climate. Asked which trends they’re most excited about over the next few years, the most prominent all revolve around environmental issues.

Naturally-grown, locally sourced foods top the list as the most exciting movement, with 35% of consumers saying they’re enthusiastic about that prospect. 34% are passionate about using eco-friendly packaging, and 23% say they want to see companies doing good things for society or the environment. While their fears about climate damage are very real, so too is the drive shop in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way.

As consumer demand for sustainable practices continues to grow, the retail industry’s focus on this needs to continue throughout 2025 and beyond. Sustainability has moved from being a “nice to have” to a strategic imperative.

Saving becomes an established behaviour

All eyes might be on the climate right now, but that doesn’t mean that saving money isn’t still a concern for customers. Looking deeper into our Pulse data, we see an interesting shift playing out: the very act of cost-saving is starting to become an “entrenched” behaviour.

One of the key questions we ask in the Pulse relates to ongoing behaviours. From a list of actions like “paying more to get better quality” and “ordering groceries online”, we ask shoppers what they’re doing today—and what they plan to continue doing tomorrow.

When we look at the results around saving-related behaviours, the picture is extremely stable. Between this and our last Pulse study, the number of people who say they’re “buying own label” (66%), “using offers” (64%), and “shopping at discounters” (60%) remains largely unchanged. Value-seeking actions have been in place for so long that they’re barely even a conscious decision for shoppers any more.

New trends are gaining traction, too, of course. “Buying products focused on staying healthy” (52%), “searching online to find out where to get the best deals” (51%), and “buying personal care and health products in specialised stores” (47%) have all become more popular in the past six months.

Finally, there are indications of “emerging” trends as well. We see a moderate increase in the number of people who are “buying products for special diets” (28%), “buying organics from specialised stores” (26%), and even those “using AI to help them with their grocery shop” (12%).

United in their love for specialists

Organics aren’t the only goods that shoppers are buying from specific retailers. While there might be variations between specific trends in different countries, Europe as a whole is united in its growing love for specialist banners—specifically those that focus on organic, frozen, and health & beauty.

Visits to specialist retailers operating in those areas have soared over the past year. In the 12 months between this study and the one for H2 2023, for instance, we see a sevenfold increase in the number of Spanish customers visiting specialist stores. In France, it’s a sixfold increase over the same period.

The progress of these “category killers”, as we’ve come to term them, will be something for traditional retailers to keep a close eye on during 2025. Across the continent, weekly visits to specialists have increased from 4% to 12% over the past 12 months. Visits to supermarkets, hypermarkets, discounters, and convenience stores, meanwhile, have largely flatlined in the same period.

Private brand serves as another focal point for European shoppers

The Consumer Pulse isn’t the only study that we run here at dunnhumby. Equally valuable in terms of understanding shopper behaviours is our Retailer Preference Index (RPI)—an annualised research programme that uses the opinions of real customers to rank each market’s grocery retailers.

When looking at the data from our French, Italian, and Spanish studies, we noticed that one factor in particular links the best performing retailers: the strength of their private brand. Simply, the overall star performers in each of those three markets are almost unanimously praised for their own-brand offering too.

Naturally, there are other correlations here. The highest ranked retailers in Italy and France are famed for their loyalty programmes and store experience. Between France and Spain, price perception is a common high point. And Spain and Italy’s best are similarly well regarded for quality and variety. Across all three markets, though, one theme alone unites the top performers—private label.

Loyalty is the key to connection and differentiation

With confidence rising, worries about the environment growing, and shoppers now laser-focused on private brands and specialist banners, many traditional retailers are probably asking how to keep pace in 2025. As it happens, the answer to that question may also lie in our RPI data.

At its core, the RPI ranks retailers based on their financial performance and emotional connection with shoppers. And, in our latest round of research across Europe, we see clear evidence that a high-performing loyalty programme has a major impact on the latter of those two issues.

In our RPIs for France, Spain, and Italy, we asked respondents to share their thoughts about the strength of each retailer’s loyalty programme, and then ranked those banners accordingly. What we learned by doing so is that retailers who feature towards the top of the loyalty satisfaction rankings have a deeper emotional connection with shoppers. This is true both for the three markets as a whole, and individually as well.

Building a bond with customers isn’t the only thing that a good loyalty programme can help with, however. It’s a good way to retailers to differentiate themselves too.

Included in each RPI are what’s known as “Preference Pillars”. Covering issues like variety, quality, and price, these pillars serve as overarching themes that help us understand what customers are most interested in when shopping for groceries. Respondents then score retailers for their performance in each.

Across most of those pillars, scores tend to remain fairly close. In the Store Experience pillar, for instance, only a 10% gap separates the top and bottom of the table. In Price, that gap stands at 15% gap, and at 14% in Own Label. In the Loyalty Programme pillar, however, there’s a huge 28% between the best and the rest.

In other words, those that do loyalty well stand out far above those who don’t—and that means there’s a much bigger opportunity for differentiation than there is in (relatively) homogenous areas like pricing.

The 2025 retailer: a blueprint for success

Save—they’ll need to address that shift towards saving and value-seeking as an entrenched behaviour.
Excite—they’ll need to step up to that sense of “post-crisis” excitement, and meet a growing desire to splurge by shoppers.
Care—they’ll also need to meet that increased demand for healthy and sustainable choices, particularly as spending power continues to grow.

From innovative formats through to the evolution of loyalty and rewards, Europe’s retailers will have plenty of opportunities to deliver on those needs—and the ones that do will be the ones that thrive.

About the Consumer Pulse

dunnhumby’s Consumer Pulse is an international research programme designed to monitor changing shopper behaviours. This edition of the Pulse focused specifically on Europe, with results based on responses from 2,000 grocery shoppers across France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the UK (400 in each market).