5 killer stats to start your week

1. Inflation set to drive Christmas spend

Although this is up on the 1.5% increase last year, this is driven entirely by inflation. Volume sales are forecast to remain flat, compared to the 1.3% growth experienced in Q4 2016.

Non-food retailers will continue to struggle this Christmas with sales expected to show year-on-year growth of only 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Volumes are forecast to fall by 0.1% as price rises, which came into play as result of the weakened pound.

Source: GlobalData

2. Marketers are on the job hunt

The marketing industry saw an influx of job applications in October. Application rates across the sector were up by 14.1% compared to September.

The data also revealed that job vacancies in the marketing industry saw an increase in October, rising by 7.9% month-over-month and 12.3% year-on-year.

Source: CV-Library

3. Brits demand stricter rules on online tracking

Ahead of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) taking effect in May 2018, new research reveals 62% of UK consumers want stricter rules surrounding data collected about people’s online behaviour. This includes the sites they visit, ads they click and purchases they make.

Under new GDPR regulations, consumers will have the right to request free access to all personal information any organisation is holding about them. Around half (52%) of those polled would make a data access request if they suspected their personal info was being held without their consent.

Source: Unicom

4. Consumers don’t trust online grocery shopping

The majority of British shoppers are still using bricks and mortar supermarkets for the bulk of their grocery shopping. While 46% of people have tried online shopping at least once, only 15% of those do so a few times a month.

The biggest barrier to consumers using online grocery services is the inability to touch and feel products before buying them. Over seven in ten (71%) non-online shoppers say they are resistant to purchase from a store’s website for this reason.

Source: YouGov

5. UK advertisers increase ad spend once again

The UK might still be facing uncertainty surrounding Brexit, but advertisers seem unaffected. UK advertising expenditure grew 3.7% to £10.8bn during the first six months of 2017.

The overall market growth is driven by increased spend on digital advertising, which is defined as internet and digital out of home. Digital accounted for 54% of all advertising spend in the first half of the year – some £5.8bn of the £10.8bn total.

Source: AA/Warc