Roaming the halls of a popular chain retail store, senior Josie White finishes off her Target-run and heads towards the checkout. As a working teen in 2023, White is conscious of her spending.
“I spent $115 at Target, which honestly isn’t that much, but I never shop. It’s weird,” White said. In the past 20 years, prices have drastically changed due to inflation. A shopping trip similar to White’s today would have only cost her about $94 five years ago. With rising prices of daily necessities, inflation has forced shoppers to reevaluate their shopping habits.
Consumers are forced to make hard decisions on the practicality and necessity of their purchases.
Shoppers are often faced with choosing which item is an immediate “need”, and which item we can put back. According to usatoday.com, 92% of American consumers are cutting back on spending due to inflated prices.
“I lowkey just pick things up, and then I don’t buy them, because they are too expensive,” senior Miguel Baranda Chamu said.
While the increase in prices are discouraging to shoppers, Gen Z never experienced the elusive ‘lower prices’ everyone’s grandpa yaps about at a holiday dinner. Gen Z has grown up returning things back to their shelves before impulse buying, ultimately creating a generation of mindful shoppers.
Aside from abandoning items that exceed the budget, Gen Z has become experts at hunting down deals in order to combat inflation.
“When I’m shopping, I just go straight for the clearance section,” junior Grace Nanquil said.
During the holidays, consumers are seeking gifts at reasonable prices. Nobody wants to be a Scrooge and skip presents or celebrations, but fitting in these extra expenses isn’t always easy.
Many stores offer savings around the holidays and consumers have also grown used to “price-matching” their purchases.
Retail stores like Target, Walmart, and many more follow this policy that allows shoppers to maximize savings.
These tactics allow consumers to adapt to inflation and become more conscious shoppers.
