UK is Shopping Neutral
Good news! The UK has of some of the smartest shoppers out there, and supposedly we really know how to outsmart the credit crunch . eBay, the online auction site has released some research concluding that Brits are pretty switched on and savvy shoppers. Britain came in as the second most ’shopping neutral’ country in Europe - after thrifty Germany.
So what really is ’shopping neutral’? Well, the term refers to shoppers who are offsetting their spending habits by selling items that they no longer have a use for. The findings were based on analysis carried out over a year period on over 100 million online transactions.
‘Shopping neutral’ is also a product of many other factors, not simply people using eBay but also that fact that we are much more tuned into recycling products as we understand that a product’s life cycle is often longer than a single ownership. Also, as we have been mentioning quite a lot here the credit crunch is forcing us to find new ways to shop and save money. Increasingly shoppers are turning to price comparison sites, using voucher codes and selling old goods to fund new goods at boot fairs, jumble sales, swap shops and auctions.
However your shopping habits have changed it seems that this new breed of conscious consuming is having pretty positive effects on the environment overall, it’s interesting to think if people would still be so thrifty and if we weren’t heading towards a recession? Thoughts?
Photo by: robholland over on flickr.