UK consumer confidence has ‘collapsed’ during Iran war, retail industry says | Retail industry
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/26/uk-consumer-confidence-has-collapsed-iran-war-retail-industry-energy-prices-inflation
Posted by JackStrawWitchita
16 Comments
UK consumer confidence has “collapsed” due to nearly twenty years of economic recession and power-hungry scum fighting over the scraps instead of fixing the problems they caused. The Iran / Trump war is just the latest example of it.
Confidence was finally increasing and then the orange fascist launched his latest masterplan of becoming richer at the expense of others.
How about you stop selling out to shitty corporations and I might actually go to the retailers and buy your products – I’m looking at you, Cadbury’s-that-no-longer-has-a-royal-appointment
I get minimal (if at all) salary adjustments annually, much lower than inflation. Therefore I keep cutting my spending, every year I cut more as prices go always up. I’m not going to complain that I suffer really but I’m more and more cautious as to what I’ll spend my money on..
*Consumer confidence* is such a bullshit deflection.
People have next to no disposable income, which has been the case long before America’s attack. It’s not that people aren’t confident, there is no money to spend!
Anecdotally, I’ve received quite a few discounts on emails in the past few days. Foot Locker, M&S.
It made me think they were possibly hurting a bit just now.
Energy price calculation has got to change, currently the government are just ripping us off.
“consumer confidence” is such a nebulous term. Confidence in what? What do we have to be confident about or have confidence in?
Is it just a euphemism for how skint people are?
Green energy (inc nuclear) could take us away from oil dependence and economic pain
If only the Shareholders would permit it
The trouble about late stage capitalism is it loses all it’s meaning and eventually becomes about nothing.
Note it was at -20% before the war. What could possibly be responsible for this??
“More to do”
R reeves
When hasn’t something not knocked the consumer confidence in the UK. There is always a big crisis that we need to face of some sort..it’s almost like we are constantly living as the sick man of Europe and always shall be.
My brother is currently trying to buy a house and he told me that his mortgage broker had said that because of the Iran war mortgage prices will go up.
All I can wonder is, wtf do mortgage prices get affected by a war so far away. I understand fuel and certain food items, but houses? Makes no sense imo.
Keep milking the cow eventually it’ll want to do something different, the best anyone can do is distance themselves from these sociopathic corporate conglomerates.
Self sufficiency is no longer just the way forward, it’s now a responsibility.
This headline is not quite accurate imo, but it’s getting there. Lot’s of comments about inflation and cost of living over the last 20 years, and they’re not wrong, but the war in Iran is also having a bigger impact than all of that in a much shorter amount of time, which is why it is concerning in the immediate.
Our sales this year had been higher than the last few years from the start of this year until last week. Since then we’ve started seeing the sales dip. They’ve not ‘collapsed’ as stated in the headline, that’s a bit OTT, but they have started dropping which is potentially the start of confidence collapsing in the retail sector. Which is completely understandable from a consumer POV.
They will inevitably collapse very quickly as soon as the economic reality starts hitting shipping and delivery and prices have to increase at the same time as consumer confidence drops. Then it’s really bad times. Heavy recession incoming.
I earn a very good wage (near £70k) for my area (NI) and I’ve completely curtailed all non-essential spending since the start of the year. I just bought my first house in September and had plans to decorate and buy furniture etc. but I’ve put all of that on hold.
My finances were depleted after buying the house and paying solicitors etc. but with what I’ve managed to save back up and with what I expect to get for redundancy (if it happens) I expect to have about 10 months to get sorted if I lose my job. Even with that much leeway I’m basically eating rice and beans and have cancelled a load of subscriptions already.
With AI and the Israeli-US war on Iran I have absolutely no confidence at all.
Given I’m in such a privileged position compared to the majority I can only imagine what people less-well-off than me are doing.