Consumer sentiment for October 2022 is 19% below the long-term average, suggesting consumers are worried. However, consumer sentiment is at odds with consumer spending. Most of the time what consumers say and what they do disconnect. Instead, we focus on measures of consumer behaviours in order to gauge the retail outlook. Restaurant and café spend has a 3x stronger correlation with retail spending than consumer sentiment. Restaurant bookings are up 23% on pre COVID-19 levels in October. Housing churn is up 80% on pre COVID-19 levels. Food inflation is 14% higher than 2019 and retail spending is up 25% on 2019 levels. There are no signs of a slowdown in spending behaviours on the near-term horizon.

Measures of consumer behaviour and sentiment