Latest news with #AmericanConsumers
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
America's Very Bad Mood Bodes Ill for Tone-Deaf Wall Street
American consumers aren't feeling great. They've been feeling bad about everything from prices to the stock market. They've felt so bad, in fact, that Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment was stuck at one of its worst readings on record for two months this spring after plunging 29% in the first four months of 2025. Over the 79 years of the survey, a drop this large this fast has almost always predicted a recession. Sentiment readings improved slightly at the start of June but still indicate Americans expect much higher prices and a much slower economy in the coming year.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Buy Now, Pay Later Loans Set To Factor Into Consumer FICO Scores
Credit scores could soon reflect how well or poorly American consumers are handling popular Buy Now, Pay Later loans (BNPL), known as a 'blind spot' to lenders, CNN reports. By late 2025, FICO plans to launch credit card suites that include BNPL data in its Score 10 and Score 10 T models so lenders can get an inside look at consumers' repayment behavior for some of these installment loans, known as an alternative to credit cards. Several American consumers view them as having more flexible payment options or looking to smooth out larger transactions to meet their budgets better. Experts like Bankrate's Chief Credit Analyst Ted Rossman say the new development will either be a plus or a loss for consumers dealing with credit issues. But who will be affected the most? Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau highlight that women, Black and Latino consumers with low credit scores, and those making between $20,001 and $50,000, have been the key to BNPL loan success. They are more than likely to be BNPL users in addition to younger generational consumers. 'A lot of BNPL users are often young people who don't have long credit histories,' Rossman said. 'That's the more optimistic use case, that these people could be brought into the credit system. And if they use Buy Now, Pay Later responsibly, it should help them.' Rossman has been keeping up with the issue of BNPL loans, also known as 'ghost debt,' with Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm being the popular ones. As the loans present an opportunity to avoid interest, there was a time when he felt these types of loans present a window to overspend, pay late, and get into trouble — symptoms that can turn into 'phantom debt.' In 2024, Rossman said debt creeps up because these companies fail to report outstanding loans to credit bureaus, making it difficult for the lender to know exactly how much debt the customer actually has. 'You don't necessarily need a great credit score to get one of these loans,' the analyst said. With FICO's announcement, that will soon change. During the COVID-19 pandemic, BNPLs were utilized for big-ticket items such as airline tickets or furniture, but now that they have grown increasingly popular, especially for clothing purchases and in light of America's economic climate, a growing number of consumers have been using the loans to pay for bare necessities such as food. According to Fox Business, LendingTree data from April 2025 reveals 25% of users have used the service to purchase groceries, a 14% increase from 2024. FICO's vice president of B2B Scores, Julie May, says the addition represents a 'significant advancement in credit scoring, accounting for the growing importance.' 'Buy Now, Pay Later loans are playing an increasingly important role in consumers' financial lives,' May said. She feels the expansion is 'enabling lenders to more accurately evaluate credit readiness, especially for consumers whose first credit experience is through BNPL products.' RELATED CONTENT: Financing Groceries: More Shoppers Are Buying Now And Paying Later For Food Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CTV News
20-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Kroger lifts annual sales target on resilient grocery demand
This file photo shows bagged purchases from the Kroger grocery store. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File) Kroger bumped up its annual same-store sales forecast on Friday, betting on strong grocery demand to offset reduced discretionary spending as American consumers grapple with tariff-driven economic uncertainty. U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff policy has rattled global markets, raising fears of persistent inflation in the United States due to impending price hikes on imported goods. Most other retailers have either lowered or withdrawn their financial targets for the year. While Kroger raised its target for full-year 2025 identical sales growth to 2.25 to 3.25 per cent, from two to three per cent expected earlier, the company maintained its annual profit forecast, with new CFO David Kennerley noting in a statement that the macroeconomic environment remained uncertain. Bellwether Walmart also maintained its annual profit forecast, while Target cut its sales guidance for the year. Kroger has invested in sprucing up its curbside pickups as well as its more affordable private label brands as it battles stiff competition from Walmart. It has also benefited from an uptick in its pharmacy business, driven by the popularity of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. Kroger's top brass has undergone a shakeup in recent months, with longtime CEO Rodney McMullen resigning following an investigation into his personal conduct. Kennerley, a former PepsiCo executive, also began his tenure as finance chief at the grocer in April. Kroger reported a first-quarter identical sales growth of 3.2 per cent, beating analysts' average expectation of 2.4 per cent, according to estimates compiled by LSEG. The grocer's gross margin was 23 per cent of sales for the quarter ended May 24, compared with 22 per cent a year ago. Its shares were down marginally in premarket trading. They have risen about seven per cent so far this year. (Reporting by Juveria Tabassum in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
Fast Company
14-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Negative reviews are your best source of feedback
Acquiring new customers has become increasingly challenging and expensive. Customer acquisition costs have risen substantially in the last five years, and they're still climbing. Attention is scarce, and even a great product isn't enough to guarantee customer retention. The fastest growth can be found not by pouring more money into marketing but by turning your existing users into advocates. And we found that at our HR tech platform, which offers a suite of technological solutions and assumes all risks and obligations associated with engaging contractors, the insights that lead to the highest customer retention come from addressing negative reviews. Handled correctly, a one-star review can go from being a blemish on your reputation to a goldmine of insights that can drive product improvements, bolster user satisfaction, and ultimately, fuel growth. Here's how. The economics of listening Your current user base is a treasure trove of opportunity. These users have already navigated your onboarding processes and understand your product's value. Engaging with their feedback can lead to enhancements that can make them champions of your brand. According to a Capital One Shopping report, 99% of American consumers read reviews before buying, and 93% say reviews impact their purchasing decisions. A CouponBirds survey found that 96% of consumers leave feedback at least some of the time, and 44% do so always. Reviews are a very loud source of business intelligence—a real-world focus group if you will. For instance, at our company, we once received an angry message from a freelancer claiming we were withholding their payment. Our initial reaction was confusion. Everything looked fine. But after digging in, we discovered the real issue—the client had failed to approve the task. At the time, our system had no failsafe. If clients went silent, freelancers got stuck, which caused numerous payments to be delayed. This message led to a product change—after a fixed time period, work now would be auto-approved. This tweak made our platform more efficient and trustworthy, not only for freelancers, but for businesses too. Every user is a potential advocate It can be tempting to only focus on decision-makers. But anyone who interacts with your product can become a powerful amplifier. A Kenyan contractor doing translations for $300 a month might not be on your CRM radar, but their experience matters. A single post on a Reddit thread, a comment in a WhatsApp group, or a Trustpilot review can influence dozens of prospective users—especially in industries where reputation travels fast and word-of-mouth is gold. That's why we treat every review seriously, regardless of where it appears—Google Play, the App Store, Trustpilot, or email. We reach out, ask follow-up questions, and even track users down on other platforms to ensure their voice is heard and their issues addressed. It only takes one frustrated customer sharing a bad experience to damage trust. Instead of letting that happen, why not use the opportunity to turn the customer into an evangelist for your brand? In addition, negative feedback can impact a company's culture. When engineers or operations teams see complaints go unaddressed, morale suffers. It has been well-documented—including by Harvard Business Review —that employees lose motivation when their work is publicly criticized and nothing changes. Getting to solve a problem for unhappy customers can become fuel for the team building the product and a motivated team will deliver better results. Four steps for turning feedback into growth #1: Know who's speaking Everyone sees the product from a different angle—and their complaints address divergent priorities. A workflow bug might frustrate your end user but never reach leadership. A missing report might annoy your buyer, even if it doesn't block usage. Categorizing feedback by persona—technical user, business buyer, etc.—helps you decide what to fix first and what's noise. #2: Build direct escalation paths The support team sees issues long before they reach the C-suite. If a complaint surfaces twice, it shouldn't need a third time to get flagged. Give customer-facing teams a clear path to share feedback with product, legal, operations—whoever can actually solve it. And empower them to identify patterns, not just create tickets. If your team has to 'make a case' to be heard, your users are already slipping through the cracks. #3: Ask better questions A complaint is an invitation to find out the root problem. Instead of doing a surface fix, get curious. What is the complaint a symptom of? Why does this matter? What downstream effect is it creating? That's how you find problems worth solving. We had a case like this. One HR representative told us our multi-currency setup was frustrating. We asked why. As it turned out, switching accounts required special permissions, delaying task creation and costing money. We redesigned the experience, enabling teams to work in a single window and assign tasks across currencies instantly. This change accelerated workflows as well as payments and led to happier clients. #4: Close the loop—every time When you resolve an issue, tell the person who flagged it. People remember when they're heard, and this builds trust and loyalty. A report by Qualtrics found that 88% of customers will likely recommend an organization after a pleasant experience. Don't automate empathy. Instead, respond like it matters, because it does. When handled with care, feedback becomes a road map—not only for a better user experience, but for longer relationships, a stronger culture, and building trust. You don't need to turn every user into an ambassador. But if you treat each one like they could be, you'll build a product—and a brand—that people fight to stay with.
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sticker shock: Are American consumers learning to live with inflation?
American consumers may be learning to live with inflation. A long-running Gallup poll shows a steep drop in the share of Americans who name inflation as their biggest financial problem. Only 29% of consumers listed inflation as their top financial concern in April, down from 41% in April 2024. It's the lowest reading on the annual survey since 2021. Another recent survey, from the Ipsos Consumer Tracker, found fewer Americans think prices are rising. The share of consumers who said their household expenses are higher than a year ago slipped from 68% in February to 58% in May. Other surveys suggest, however, that inflation remains very much on consumers' minds. In a CBS News poll, taken in late May, 76% of Americans said their income wasn't keeping up with inflation. And a University of Michigan consumer survey, updated May 30, found that Americans expect prices to rise by 6.6% over the next year, twice the annual inflation rate they predicted a year ago. Economists say American consumers harbor complex feelings about inflation. On one hand, consumers have consistently cited rising prices as a top household concern, a sentiment that dates back to the dawn of the COVID-19-era inflation crisis in 2021. On the other hand, through four inflationary years, Americans have continued to spend. Consumer spending has risen steadily from 2021 through early 2025, despite rising prices. (Consumer spending slowed slightly in April, according to data released May 30.) 'We've had a remarkably robust consumer for the past 3 ½ years, when we've had a lot of inflation,' said Aditya Bhave, senior U.S. economist at Bank of America. Americans have had plenty of time to get used to inflation. The annual rate has hovered above 2% for every month since February 2021, federal data shows. The Federal Reserve sets 2% as its goal for a healthy inflation rate. The sky-high inflation of 2021 and 2022 is long gone. The annual rate hasn't topped 4% since early 2023. In April 2025, inflation registered at an unremarkable 2.3%. 'We don't have the super-high, 6%, 7% and 8% inflation numbers anymore,' said Yiming Ma, an associate professor at Columbia Business School. 'If you listen to the news, it's not as much about inflation anymore.' For much of this year, other financial worries have dominated the financial headlines: Tariffs. Turbulent stocks. Instability at Social Security, the IRS and other federal agencies. Potential Medicaid cuts. Many of those fears peaked in April, the month President Donald Trump rolled out sweeping import tariffs. 'There's a lot of moving parts that were affecting consumers attitudes toward the economy in April,' said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. Adams notes that Gallup polled consumers about financial worries in early April, just as the tariff drama was unfolding. Tariffs, of course, are widely presumed by economists to cause inflation. In the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, inflation fears spiked dramatically as the Trump administration pursued tariffs. In January, the average consumer expected prices to rise 3.3% in the next year. By May, the figure had risen to 6.6%. That data point, too, is complicated – and highly politicized. Democrats expect prices to rise by 8% over the next year, according to Michigan survey data from April. Republicans expect them to rise by 0.4%. The figures are three-month averages. The disparity suggests Democrats and Republicans occupy separate realities. Economists say it illustrates that one party expects Trump's economic policies to succeed, while the other expects them to fail. 'There's a huge amount of partisan influence when you see consumer sentiment,' Stephen Juneau, senior U.S. economist at Bank of America Securities, told USA TODAY in March. Americans seem largely united, however, in their disdain of higher prices. Consumer prices are about 24% higher now than in February 2020, at the dawn of the pandemic, Bankrate reports. 'The cumulative increase in prices over the last half-decade has been much higher than it was from 2015 to 2020,' said Adams of Comerica. 'And I think that is what has contributed to this sense of frustration about inflation among American consumers.' Before the current inflation outbreak, America had not experienced an inflation crisis in 40 years. The 8% annual inflation rate in 2022 was the highest figure recorded since 1981, according to Federal Reserve data. American consumers may have learned to live with inflation. Here's what it would take for them to forget about it, according to Adams and other economic experts: The Fed aims for a target of 2% annual inflation: A level so low that consumers tune it out. If the annual inflation rate reaches that range and stays there, the Fed reasons, most Americans won't notice it. 'I think you'd need an extended period of somewhat lower inflation, in the low 2s or high 1s, along with wages that are outpacing that inflation,' said Bhave of Bank of America. If inflation eases to 2%, the Fed's target rate, it might still take many months for consumers to adjust to permanently higher prices. 'It is not long ago that you can remember what eggs cost in 2021 or 2021, compared to now,' said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the progressive Groundwork Collaborative. Consumer prices spiked dramatically in 2021 and 2022. Prices continued to rise in 2023 and 2024, but not so sharply. If inflation continues to cool, and wages continue to rise, Jacquez and other said, the day will come when prices no longer seem so high. 'I think we could see consumers adjusting to prices as they are today, if we see the rate of inflation going to where it used to be,' Adams said. 'But it'll take time.' This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Are Americans learning to live with inflation? Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
