News International's Consumer Eye reveals that consumer confidence has risen by 10 points to -22 in the period July-September, up from -32 in June, -36 in March and -41 in December.

Consumer outlook for the next three months has also improved, with only 23% of respondents thinking the situation will get worse compared to 27% last quarter, suggesting a continued bottoming out in consumer mindsets. This is due to less concern about savings and more optimism about property value. 

• Whilst we see men more optimistic than women, both genders are growingly becoming more confident.
• The 18-24 year olds are the most confident with less pressure and responsibilities to face unlike households with children who remain the most pessimistic audience group.
• The overall economy and house value are the two main economic metrics where an increase in volume of people think will improve in the next 3 months. 
• For example 16% feel house value will get better in the next 3 months compared to 3% in December ’08.
• Fuel costs is the one metric where we observe more people growingly becoming concerned about with the continuous creep in petrol prices by £0.17p observed since Mar.

The latest wave includes a spotlight on consumer Christmas plans this year and how it may be different to last year. 

• 36% have already started thinking about Christmas.
• The percentage increases for women and homemakers in particular with almost half of women and over half of homemakers already thinking about it.
• In general, 51% of consumers intend to spend the same amount for Christmas this year.
• A third of consumers plan to start putting their gift list together two months prior to Christmas along with a third who plan to buy the gifts a month before Christmas.
• Consumers thrive on inspiration for gift ideas by asking friends and family with 59%. Half do so by browsing in stores. 23% are inspired from newspaper articles and 16% say adverts in newspapers are a good source of inspiration.
  
• Over a third use online for inspiration and 18% plan to do most of their Christmas shopping online. Over 1 in 4 plan to use the internet more this Christmas than previous to do their shopping.

Consumer Eye, a quarterly survey of over 3,000 readers provides an insight into consumer confidence, views on the economic outlook and current and future purchase intentions.

The research is aimed at providing News International and its customers with valuable insights that could help to develop advertiser’s communication approach to consumers. The size and frequency of Consumer Eye will provide one of the most comprehensive and up to date consumer surveys available to marketers.

If you are are media agency or advertiser interested in arranging a presentation of the latest results please contact chris.worrell@newsint.co.uk