Britons’ spending habits have changed to allow for the recession and shopping trends have appeared in the sales of wine, good food and DVDs.
This is what the statistics from the Office for National Statistics are suggesting as they seek to understand the spending patterns of consumers.
The review shows that people are buying more luxury foods and that parmesan cheese is a popular choice that has appeared in the recorded trends for the first time, accompanied by small bottles of cider and rosé wines.
The list also shows that MP3 players have been replaced by MP4 players, which also play videos and that high-definition Blu-ray DVDs are also now very popular now that their prices have dropped significantly. Also showing a rise in people opting to stay in rather than venture out is the addition of Freeview boxes making it onto the list but this could also be due to the change from Analogue signal to Digital.
Another sign of the times changing is the drop in popularity of DVD rentals as internet DVD rental companies, such as LoveFilm have seen a huge increase in popularity. The company, which sends DVDs to its subscribers through the post, has told of a 20% rise in membership over the past few months.
The national survey collects around 120,000 prices every month for a basket of about 650 products and services. The Office for National Statistics then measures the changes in prices of items to compile the two main measures of inflation; the consumer prices index which is targeted by the Bank of England, and also the retail prices index, on which such things as pensions, benefits and pay deals are based.
If anyone was to start wondering just how in-depth these statistics are then they would only need to look at the company’s figures and statistics on wallpaper strippers. The Office for National Statistics has even investigated and discovered that people no longer seem to wish to hire out domestic steam wallpaper strippers, due to them apparently preferring to buy their own stripper instead.
Predictions for the future indexes include the possible continued increase in egg sales and the possible drop in sales of digital cameras, as young people continue to opt for using the cameras in their phones rather than a separate digital camera. Possible increases could also be seen in the online shopping field as people continue to prefer purchasing their products over the internet rather than in actual stores. This trend could be due to the ease of this but also to the increased popularity of online vouchers from sites such as moneysupermarket.com that can help save you money on your shopping.
A vouchers article by Gill Critchley from moneysupermarket.com.
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