Overview
Sales data explain what has already happened, but successful strategy depends on understanding what will happen next and why.
Our Consumer Outlook Service brings together award-winning forecasts, actionable insights, and expert support to help you build a more accurate, forward-looking view of how the external environment affects consumer demand and business costs.
Questions we help you answer
We interpret the macroeconomy through the lens of consumer markets, helping you assess shifts in purchasing power, drivers of consumer spending, inflation, and costs, and understand what they mean for your growth, margins, and investment decisions.
- Market monitoring: What is really driving consumer demand in my key markets right now?
- Demand forecast: How will changes in income, inflation, and consumer confidence affect our sales outlook?
- Market prioritisation: Which markets offer the strongest growth potential over the next three to five years?
- Cost outlook: How will input costs, wage growth, and foreign exchange movements affect our cost base?
- Tariff impact: How exposed is my supply chain to tariffs and geopolitical shocks?
- Risk exposure: How resilient is demand in our core categories if economic conditions weaken?
Key features
Combining forward-looking analysis with dedicated expert support, our Consumer Outlook Service helps you track trends shaping demand and costs in the world’s largest consumer markets.
Consumer outlook dashboard
An interactive dashboard designed specifically for consumer-facing businesses, bringing together demand and cost indicators within a single, consistent view. Explore our latest forecasts through to 2060, compare markets and time horizons, and download presentation-ready charts for instant use in planning and reporting.
Key indicators include disposable income, consumer spending by category, retail sales, demographics, income segmentation, wealth, tourism flows, inflation, and foreign exchange.
Business and consumer insights
We translate developments in the wider business environment into clear insights on consumer demand and business costs, helping you understand not just what is happening, but what it means for your business.
- Weekly consumer newsletter summarises the developments shaping consumer markets, helping you cut through the noise and focus on what matters most.
- Consumer chartbooks deliver in-depth analysis of consumer markets at regional and local levels, exploring key drivers and highlighting the areas where growth and risk are concentrated.
- Regular global and country reports offer an overview of economic and market developments, setting out our baseline forecasts. Our Research Briefings examine structural shifts in inflation, income, demographics, and spending patterns, as well as the implications of geopolitical tensions, trade developments, and other external shocks.
- Scenario analysis reports help you explore both upside and downside risks while assessing resilience under different conditions.
Expert presentations and support
Our team works closely with you as a trusted partner, helping you embed our insights into your planning and decision-making processes.
Our support includes:
- Expert-led presentations with opportunity for discussion and questions.
- Access to regular consumer-focused webinars and live events that provide forward-looking updates and interpretation of key developments.
- Direct access to our economists to discuss questions related to our forecasts and analysis.
Benefits
- Set realistic demand and cost targets in your annual planning and budgeting. Use our forward-looking forecasts on income, consumer spending, inflation, and foreign exchange to anchor demand, pricing, and cost expectations, guide resource allocation, and align stakeholders.
- Strengthen long -term strategy and investment decisions. Assess structural shifts in income, demographics, and demand to inform long-term planning, and compare markets on a globally consistent basis to identify areas of sustainable growth.
- Respond quickly to market disruption. Access timely analysis that helps you adapt your strategy as conditions change.
- Track market developments and anticipate turning points. Monitor the drivers of consumer demand across markets. Explore scenario summaries to understand how trade shifts, geopolitical tensions, policy changes, or economic shocks could affect consumer demand and business costs.
How we can support you
FMCG
Operating across multiple markets, FMCG businesses are highly exposed to shifts in household income, inflation, and foreign exchange. Even modest changes in real income can quickly alter volume, mix, and margin performance across regions.
We provide a forward-looking view of consumer demand to help you set credible sales targets, inform pricing decisions, monitor cost pressures, and protect margins. Our globally consistent forecasts allow you to conduct truly like-for-like market comparisons, highlighting where growth is set to be more resilient and where pressure is building. Acting as your partner, we provide context, analysis, clear assumptions, and a point of view to help you make sense of the data and what it means for your business.
Durables and discretionary goods
Demand for durables and discretionary products is closely tied to consumer confidence, financing conditions, and purchasing power. Cycles can turn quickly as credit or real income conditions evolve, creating sharp swings in demand across markets.
By providing a clearer, more accurate view of demand conditions and alternative scenarios, we help you assess growth potential across markets, supporting smarter production planning, inventory management, and investment decisions in volatile environments.
Retailers
Retailers are directly exposed to changing spending patterns and shifts in income distribution at national and local levels. Performance can diverge significantly across markets, requiring careful prioritisation over both the short and long terms.
We enable consistent cross-market benchmarking and early identification of demand and cost shifts, supporting confident location decisions, supplier negotiations, and product mix and pricing strategies.
Food and beverage
For food and beverage brands, discretionary spending, real income trends, and — in many markets — tourism flows play a significant role in shaping your business performance.
We help you interpret how income conditions and inflation affect consumer spending, integrate tourism outlooks into sales forecasts, and understand how changes in inflation, wage growth, and other costs can affect your P&L.
Luxury
Demands for luxury goods are shaped by high-income consumer trends, wealth effects, and cross-border travel flows.
By combining forecasts for high-income household growth, wealth effects, consumer spending, and tourism, we help you track where premium demand is strengthening or weakening. This enables more robust market prioritisation, inventory allocation, and investment decisions across both domestic and travel retail channels.
Consumer Health
The consumer health market, particularly in over-the-counter categories, is influenced by purchasing power and demographics.
We provide insights into purchasing power, pricing pressures on consumers, and demographic trends across markets, helping you assess where demand may be strongest, where price sensitivity may drive demand for generics, and which markets provide long-term growth opportunities.
Why Oxford Economics
We act as an independent voice, a global forecasting and decision engine, and a strategic partner to consumer-facing companies worldwide.
A partner, not just a platform
We work alongside you to interpret economic developments through the lens of consumer markets. Through training, presentations, and ongoing support, we help embed insights into your budgeting and strategic planning cycles.
Built for decisions, not just data
Our macroeconomic forecasts, updated twice a month, provide a timely view of the consumer and business environment. Paired with expert analysis explaining the business implications, they form a decision framework for real-world planning, helping you anticipate shifts before they appear in reported sales.
A 360° view of the business environment
We bring together macroeconomic, consumer, business, tourism, and city-level insights into a unified perspective of the business environment. Scenario analysis builds on this baseline, helping you explore alternative outcomes and prepare for volatility with greater confidence.
Truly comparable global insight
Our globally consistent methodologies allow you to compare markets on a truly like-for-like basis. This supports more disciplined investment decisions and more informed market entry, expansion, or route-to-market decisions.
Latest consumer and business insights
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APR 21 2026
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What our clients say
The inputs provided by Oxford Economics have been crucial for our business. In an always-changing environment, where economic data is key to understand the potential recovery of the B2C markets, Oxford Economics has proven its value, providing continuous analyses and insights on the future of our markets and the key economic global outlook for the next years.
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