Despite Historically High Inflation, Seasonal Purchase Trends Appear to be Normal
Inflation is top of everyone’s mind these days for good reason as we are seeing historically high inflation after a 30 year period of low inflation. With that in mind, consumer buying behaviour based on actual purchase data is a good way to look at the trends and see where we might be headed.
Our partners at Moneris have shared some stats for 2022 based on Average Transaction Size from across their network of 350,000 point of sale terminals across Canada, which is 40% of the market.
In particular, apparel purchases are back down to January levels at $103 after peaking at the end of May. Looking at historical data for apparel going back to 2018, this aligns with the seasonal trend. If this trend continues to align with the historical data, then the current ATS of $103 will be the bottom of the trough and will begin to trend upward in the next few weeks and peak again at Christmas.
Here’s where we are so far this year compared with previous years
Peak to Trough – Reporting Period % Decline
2022 -18%
2021 -14%
2020 -22%
2019 -15%
2018 -14%
For Groceries, ATS usually dips in the summer and peaks in December, and the ATS this summer is relatively unchanged which could be a sign that Canadians may be accommodating for the higher costs of groceries by buying less per visit.
Stay tuned – hopefully these transaction stats show a trend to return to normal rather than a ‘new normal’ of ever higher prices.
For more actionable data on consumer trends, Connected Interactive and Moneris have partnered to bring 700 different categories of retail transaction data which are updated quarterly.
Powered by 28mm unique fraud-free devices based on over 800k Canadian 6-digit postal codes, this unique dataset is available to marketers within CI’s self-serve datadesk.io platform or as a managed service. For more information please reach out and let us help you craft a custom data strategy to meet your marketing goals.