The cost of living does not stop growing and Spanish consumers know it, which is why it is increasingly common for them to take out their smartphone calculators to calculate what they can afford to include in their shopping basket.

The price is one of the main issues to take into account in these calculations, and that is that the products consumed in Spain have increased their prices by 16.5% in the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period of the previous year. since the average price of the items purchased was €1.57 and is now €1.83, according to the Association of Manufacturers and Distributors (AECOC).

This upward trend in the prices of individual products is also observed in the overall cost of the purchases that Spaniards made during the first three months of this year, and what they spent in the next three. On average between January and March they spent €32.4 each time they went shopping, while from then until June it was €35. That is, Spaniards are paying 8% more since the year started.

However, if these prices are compared with the same period in 2022, the increase is not as pronounced and is around 3%.

And although so far in 2023 we are paying 2.7% less than what was spent on average the previous year, Spaniards have stopped going to the supermarket with the same frequency.

In fact, in the first half of this year, Spaniards went shopping three times a month, while in the same period of the previous year they did so four times a month.. This means that the frequency of consumer purchases has decreased by 18%. However, if we compare the average frequency during 2022, and so far in 2023, this decrease is also somewhat lighter (15%).

CHANGE OF HABITS

Rising prices are also affecting the number of products with which the shopping cart is filled.. While in the first half of 2022 it took over more than twenty articles (21.8 exactly), in the same period this year it took over 15.5% less. Given this situation, the commercial strategy manager of the distributor association, Rosario Pedrosa, explains that “consumers tend to buy smaller baskets as a strategy to control and try to minimize their spending.”

And between calculation and calculation the changes come. “These negative perspectives affect consumer habits,” Pedrosa indicated in May on the occasion of the publication of the Shopperview barometer that he created in collaboration with 40dB on consumer habits in an inflationary situation such as the one currently occurring.

Even this report shows that almost half of consumers in Spain assumed that their domestic economy had worsened in the last year, which represents an increase of 32% of Spaniards who claimed to be experiencing a reduction in purchasing power last year.

This same study reflected the areas in which consumers were cutting back and although the majority referred to spending reducing expenses on restaurants, leisure and travel, 26% were forced to do so on consumer products, that is, those of primary necessity. What are the foods like?

And just as the items change, the Spaniards also propose changes in the establishments where they buy them, in fact 57% of the population changes their usual shopping places in search of offers that reduce spending.

In addition to the purchase, there are many reasons for these changes, all related to prices, including the increase in the cost of energy or mortgage payments.