Sustained high interest ratesHigh interest rates are straining finances, and in the last year, many consumers accessed their retirement savings to make ends meet.
Seventy percent (70%) of spend is on groceries, retail, travel, eating out and fuel, but this varies in the different South African cities.
“While groceries is the highest across all cities, in Johannesburg retail and eating out is also high, while in Cape Town travel is high,” says Kallner.
A demand for convenience
Busy lifestyles have led to a demand for convenience, showing growth in the spend on eating out and takeout, with spend on food overall exceeding inflation.
Groceries are seeing smaller baskets but more frequent shopping. Cape Town spend is the most on groceries out of the South African cities surveyed, while for Johannesburg, eating out is the biggest spend.
However, the differentiator between eating out and grocery spend is very small.
The shift to convenience is across all age groups with an increase in online food spend with R1 out of every R5 spent is on convenience is spent online.
“Interesting this shift is not at the expense of healthy shopping. However, while healthy food comprise 40% of a basket at the start of the week, this falls to 29% by the weekend,” expands Kallner.
Online shop still healthier than physical store shopping.
Travel taper off
Travel growth has tapered off with an average spend stabilising around post-pandemic levels.
The most expensive route is George to Johannesburg. The flights most booked are on Monday and Sunday, which reflects the semigration.
Later in the evenings (7 pm) are the cheapest Johannesburg to Cape Town flights, with Friday afternoon most expensive to Cape Town from Johannesburg.
Johannesburg to Paris is the most expensive route internationally.
International visitors to South Africa love Cape Town with half of visitors flying into Cape Town. The top five countries' visitors are the US, UK, UAE, Germany and Canada.
