Thrift, norming and price paranoia will be consumer trends in 2025

Gartner research shows that consumers are coming to regard thrift as an aspirational virtue, openly resisting consumerism for self-improvement and similar motives. Gartner also detects a widespread trend called “norming” — essentially, seeking reassurance about personal behavior and attitudes by checking them against objective and community standards. Consumers also proved paranoid about unexpected and inconsistent costs and pricing.

In addition, 74% of consumers express openness to automated technologies including drone delivery and cashier-less stores. We spoke with Kate Muhl, Gartner’s consumer and cultural insigbhts expert about the significance of these findings. (The full report is available only to Gartner clients.)

Wholesome thrift. A generation of “New Spartans” are embracing thrift, almost as a lifestyle choice. Certainly, the impulse to save money is not unrelated to the recent battle with inflation, but it seems to have taken on a broader significance. In the Gartner research, 88% of consumers reported embracing one or more underconsumption behaviors than they would have two years ago. Examples include:

• Using products longer rather than replacing.
• Choosing to buy second-hand or DIY rather than already assembled.
• Fixing rather than buying new.

Yes, prices are on consumers’ minds, but 68% cited lifestyle or self-improvement reasons for underconsumptive behavior, including:

• Decluttering and simplifying life (45%).
• Feeling better about themselves (35%).
• Proving to myself and others that I could (28%).
• Environmental concerns (23%).

“I guess I am never surprised at a consumer’s ability to take something and turn it into a way to tell a story about themselves,” mused Muhl. “This is like taking something you may be forced to do and turning it into something you control and that you can turn into a ‘braggable.’” She noted that there were no signs yet, despite the decrease in inflation, of returning to ’90s-style conspicuous consumption. “Perhaps we’ll see that in a year or two. Right now, austerity is something you have the strength or wisdom to embrace.”

Could this also be a sign of people choosing experiences over products? “Yes, I think that’s fair,” said Muhl. “The long tail on an experience you paid for is much better than, like, a sweater.”

Message to brand marketers: Support your customers’ goals. Brands with values can win extra cachet here.

Are you norming? In an uncertain world, consumers are looking for objective (or at least, communal) benchmarks for their actions and opinions. They say they are looking for:

• Clearly established boundaries (76%).
• An ability to label and categorize things (64%).
• An understanding of themselves and their place in the world (57%).
• Some kind of “playbook” for progressing through life (48%).

This is not a new concept, said Muhl, but it has recently picked up momentum. Back in 2018, she said, there was a top trend in the research called “My Data, My Self,” because people had become interested in the data trails they were leaving behind that were unique to themselves. That’s counter to the idea of norming. “What we don’t know these days is how we fit into the whole,” she said. “You can’t see the forest for the trees, which is bad because you are a tree in the forest. You want to know, am I tall tree, am I a small tree, how many trees are in this forest?”

Message to brand marketers: Help consumers understand themselves in context by providing content that doesn’t necessarily lead directly to a purchase.

Paranoid about the price. Almost 60% of consumers lacked confidence in knowing the true, final cost of a purchase. Reasons included:

• Service bill increased while usage did not (38%)
• Discrepancies between online and in-store prices (31%).
• Price changing in shopping cart (29%).
• Hidden or unexpected fees (23%).

Among the trends considered, this probably has the widest impact, said Muhl. Given the current rate of inflation, “consumers should be feeling okay,” she said. “And yet they do not, or the repair of their feeling about cost is happening much more slowly than a lot of our clients would like to see.”

Businesses like stability, she observed. They don’t like sudden surges in costs; they need to be able to plan. “Why wouldn’t individuals be the same?”

Message to brand marketers: Be known for price stability and reciprocate loyalty through rewards programs.

Why we care. There is no shortage of large datasets that tell us what consumers are doing — how much they are spending and how they are shopping. Tracking consumer behavior is virtually an industry during the holiday shopping period especially. And that’s all valuable.

What Gartner seeks to add, by looking at cultural as well as consumption trends, is an understanding of the deeper belief systems driving consumer behavior, and the challenge is to do this at scale rather than seeking to psychoanalyze shoppers one by one.

(Note: The research on level of comfort with drones surely predates the current news cycle!)

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