– Retail visitors up 200% year-on-year.

– After a relatively slow start through Q1, US consumers have resumed everyday life with gusto.

– Foot traffic to almost every industry sector has increased, with most recording their highest visitor counts in a year.

Blis, the pioneer of privacy-first location-powered advertising, today reveals its new Consumer Confidence Pulse — the most comprehensive tracker of its kind — this interactive dashboard builds on its existing trended data around consumer mood to analyze COVID anxiety. The dashboard also now tracks consumer movement over a rolling 13-month period, across 18 retail and lifestyle sectors including airports, gyms, malls, restaurants and grocery stores.

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The Pulse runs in the UK, USA, Netherlands, Italy, Singapore and Australia and will launch in India, New Zealand and the Philippines in the coming months. Each month it tracks responses to four questions around the economy, household financials, spend intent and COVID-19 anxiety.  Coupled with consumer movement analysis, the dashboard enables brands to better understand trendlines by industry sectors.

Several key takeaways include:

• Consumer concern around COVID-19 is receding, but the majority remain cautious.

• Economic confidence is returning, fuelled by active consumers.

• Household financial confidence – relatively robust even throughout the worst of the crisis, thanks in part to government income support schemes – is having a wobble as uncertainty surfaces.

• When initial lockdowns were relaxed, consumers gradually resumed previous activities, but with each subsequent lifting of restrictions, the speed of return has increased.

• Fiscal responsibility was evident as people weathered the storm by saving more, and paying off debt as priorities.

Alex Wright, Blis Global Insights Director, commented: “Our data has shown that consumers are capable of exercising their own caution in advance of government imposed restrictions. However, even with the virus remaining a pervasive and justifiable concern for many, the growing number of people becoming more active month-after-month in retail and lifestyle activities suggests that the need to start getting back to ‘normal’ outweighs the caution.”

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In the US, Blis’ data suggests that despite new variants becoming hot topics of concern this hasn’t stopped more consumers returning to everyday life in July, albeit alongside recent dips in economic and household financial confidence.

Consumers’ desire to save money remains high in July, with 1 in 5 respondents saying this is what they’d do with spare cash, but this month also marks the first time that debt repayment has been the number one priority for our respondents – the second consecutive month of increase, and almost double since May.

Gil Larsen, Managing Director, US, Blis added: “Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve seen brands pivot their operations, strategy and messaging multiple times to meet their consumers’ concerns about safety. The new dashboard will be an invaluable tool for brands to get ahead of the curve by ensuring their campaigns and messaging are striking the right tone and audiences at the right time.”

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