Are people buying less in the UK?

Are people buying less in the UK?

Yes, at the till. But the till is the last place the shift shows up.

What the UK spending data shows – and how consumer confidence reads the pullback before transaction records do

Ask whether people are buying less in the UK and the answer depends on which data you read.

ONS retail sales volumes rose 0.5% in the three months to April 2026 – modest, but growth nonetheless. BRC-KPMG's April figures pointed the other way, with retail sales down 3.0% and most categories falling apart from beauty, health and jewellery. ONS household spending rose just 0.8% across 2025 – hardly a free-spending consumer.

So: yes in some places, no in others, and the bigger story is that people are buying differently. Fewer risks. Fewer extras. More trade-offs. More delay. More value scrutiny.

For retail and FMCG planners, the more useful question isn't "are people buying less?" It's "less of what – and what's about to move next?"

Less of what?

"Buying less" is a category, not a number.

Less volume? Less premium? Less frequency? Less full-price? Less brand loyalty? Less commitment? Less spontaneity? Each of those tells a different story – and triggers a different planning response.

A household can spend the same amount and still feel they're buying less, because inflation has eaten the basket. The till may show spend. The customer feels loss.

That's the gap retail data alone can't show.

Sales value can rise while volume falls

This is the trap most "retail is holding up" stories fall into.

Headline spend can stay flat or grow while volume softens, baskets shrink, premium tiers thin out, second items drop, and promotional reliance climbs. The number on the slide looks healthy. The behaviour underneath isn't.

For retail and FMCG teams, the question isn't whether sales rose. It's whether they rose because of more items, higher prices, mix shift, inflation, premium trade-up, promotions or pure switching from competitors. Each cause has a different commercial meaning.

Where the pullback shows up first

Before total sales fall, several smaller behaviours have usually already moved:

• Smaller baskets
• Fewer impulse items
• Switching to own-label
• Buying more on promotion
• Dropping premium tiers
• Delaying big-ticket purchases
• Fewer trips
• Cutting second or third items
• Choosing value retailers
• Cancelling or pausing non-essentials

By the time the headline sales line confirms a pullback, the customer mood moved six to twelve weeks ago. Each of those behaviours is a leading signal in its own right – and none of them appears in the headline retail data.

Why consumer confidence data leads transaction data

Transaction data tells you what people did. Consumer confidence data tells you what they're preparing to do.

Before people buy less, they usually feel less safe spending. They start scanning harder for deals. Questioning whether the purchase is worth it. Delaying the upgrade. Switching brands quietly. Building a buffer. Cutting extras without announcing it. Avoiding commitment.

That sequence creates the early-signal window. By the time those feelings convert into transaction data, the next shift has already started.

Confidence data doesn't replace volume data. It gets there first.

People aren't only cutting back – they're reallocating

The biggest mistake in the "are people buying less?" debate is treating the question as binary.

Spending shifts as much as it falls. Less fashion, more beauty top-ups. Fewer meals out, more in-home treats. Less premium grocery, more own-label. Fewer big home purchases, more small home fixes. Fewer spontaneous trips, more planned value moments. Less travel, more streaming.

The five Drivers behind those shifts – Control, Desire, Belonging, Immersion and Freedom – explain why some categories grow while others contract in the same quarter. Customers leaning into Control trade down on essentials and protect predictability. Customers leaning into Immersion protect the small escapes that get them through the week. Customers leaning into Freedom drop commitment-heavy categories first.

Buying less rarely means wanting less. It often means moving spend to where it feels safer, cheaper or more emotionally useful.

What retail and FMCG teams should track

The teams that read this right don't just watch retail sales. They watch the consumer-side signals that move before them:

• Trade-down intent – willingness to swap premium for value
• Treat permission – whether customers still feel allowed to indulge
• Big-ticket appetite – readiness to commit
• Savings instinct – buffer-building behaviour
• Category permission – what feels worth the spend this week
• Channel pull – value retailer vs full-service, online vs in-store

Each one is a leading indicator. None of them appear in last month's BRC-KPMG release.

Where Konfidant fits

Konfidant gives retail and FMCG teams the early signal layer that transaction data doesn't. We track how the UK thinks, feels and behaves every week – combining 2,000 consumer interviews each week, a longitudinal community of 50 UK households tracked since March 2020, more than 600,000 interviews accumulated, the eight emotional seasons, the five Drivers, human analysis and Konnie, our AI intelligence layer.

For commercial planners, that means seeing trade-down behaviour before margins move. Reading category permission week by week, not quarter by quarter. Spotting which audiences are tightening and which are still spending. Catching the reallocation from premium to value, or from in-home to out, before the till data confirms it.

Konfidant helps teams see the pullback while it's still a feeling, not just after it becomes a sales line.

The bottom line

Are people buying less in the UK? In some categories, yes. In others, no. In aggregate, they're being more selective about what earns a place in the basket.

The question isn't only whether people are buying less. It's what they've stopped feeling safe enough to buy.

See how Konfidant tracks the consumer mood that moves before the till data does.