Heatwave drives Irish consumer spending
According to Visa’s Irish Consumer Spending Index, June saw major growth in household spending in the hotels & restaurants, food & drink and clothing & footwear sectors
Print16 July 2018
Visa’s Irish Consumer Spending Index, which measures expenditure across all payment types (cash, cheques and electronic payments), pointed to a pick-up in the rate of growth in Irish household expenditure in June, driven by the recent heatwave across Ireland.
Consumer spending was up +5.5% year-on-year in June, up from the +3.7% increase recorded in May, signalling the fastest rise in household spending since July 2016. Growth was also sharper than the average since the series began in September 2014. Solid increases in spending were recorded across both face-to-face and eCommerce channels. The rate of expansion in eCommerce spending (+5.5%) eased to a three-month low in June, while face-to-face (+5.4%) saw the strongest rise since January.
As was the case in May, the household goods sector posted the fastest increase in spending of the eight monitored sectors (+13.0% year-on-year), with home improvement stores selling items like BBQs and garden furniture performing well. Double-digit growth was also seen in the hotels, restaurants & bars sector (+10%) with publicans and hoteliers reporting a heatwave boost with families enjoying staycations in Ireland, as well as sporting and music events helping to drive footfall.
Household spending on food & drink reached a three-month high in June, up +7.9% year-on-year. Elsewhere, marked and accelerated increases in spending were seen in the clothing & footwear (+5.0%), transport & communication (+7.0%) and recreation & culture categories (+4.5%) with summer clothing and outdoor events proving popular due to the good weather.
Andrew Harker, associate director at IHS Markit, expects spending to rise further. “With the good weather continuing into July, consumer confidence at the highest for nearly two-and-a-half years and unemployment at the lowest in over a decade, the stage is set for further increases in spending as the second half of 2018 begins,” Harker said.
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