Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Gen Z leads the trade-down trend
Consumer | Europe | Retail
January 21, 2025 – With pessimism about the economy rising in Europe, consumers there continue to switch to less expensive products or postpone purchases (referred to as trading down), but a larger proportion of younger consumers report doing so than their older counterparts. Between 80 and 95 percent of Gen Z and millennial consumers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom reported trade-down behaviors in late fall 2024, senior partner Jessica Moulton and colleagues note. In comparison, 52 to 81 percent of Gen Xers, baby boomers, and the Silent Generation are trading down.
To read the article, see “An update on European consumer sentiment: As pessimism grows, what happens to holiday spending?,” December 12, 2024.
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Visual form
Heatmap and Table (with Visual Encoding): labeled dot matrix of EU-5 trade-down behavior by income and generation.
Layout / body structure
The chart has two side-by-side grids. The left grid compares income groups by country, and the right grid compares generations by country.
What is being compared
It compares the share of respondents trading down across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, split first by income segment and then by generation.
Measurement system
Each dot shows a current percentage, with a smaller percentage-point change since Q3 2023 shown beneath it. Dot color encodes the value band, from lower shares to shares of 85 percent or higher.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Colored labeled circles fill the country-by-group cells. The generation grid shows darker, higher-value dots in the Gen Z and millennial rows, while older cohorts have lighter, lower-value dots.
Main takeaway from the visual
The chart shows trade-down behavior as widespread across the EU-5, but younger consumers report it most intensely.
Key standout values or extremes
Gen Z reaches 95 percent in Spain and 90 percent in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Boomers and Silent respondents fall as low as 52 percent in the United Kingdom and 58 percent in Spain and Germany.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a fixed labeled-dot matrix; there are no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the EU-5 trade-down matrix is the visual on this page.