Economic blackout, digital beauty, luxury calm and other key stats from this week

A lot happens in a week, so every Friday we're going to analyze all the new data and provide you with some of the key takeaways. Welcome to the Friday 5.

This week, the economic blackout day made an impact, ecommerce buoys beauty, and and luxury spending continues.

Key stat: Almost a third of US consumers barely use Google search. 30% of active web users only perform 1-20 Google searches per month, according to September 2024 data from Datos analyzed by Sparktoro.

• 36% of web users perform 21-100 Google searches a month, and 34% perform more than 100, per the data.
• 77.7% of the US population, or 267.2 million people, will search online in 2025, according to our June 2024 forecast.

Key stat: Last month's "economic blackout" made a small dent. Debit and credit card spending fell 7.4% YoY on February 28, where many categories like restaurants and grocery stores experienced meaningful declines, according to data from Earnest Analytics and Vela Gamma.

• However, ecommerce sites like Amazon and Temu did not experience a significant decline on that day, per the data.
• US consumer spending fell 3.4% YoY last month, but when accounting for 2024 being a leap year, February was flat.

Key stat: Digital spend on health and beauty purchases outpaces physical stores. Consumers spend 64% more on health and beauty products when they purchase them online versus in-store, according to December 2024 data from PYMNTS.

• That said, 36.5% of consumers had recently purchased health and beauty products in-store, compared to 30.3% who bought them online.
• More than other generations, Gen Z shopped for every non-grocery retail category online, except home furnishings and alcoholic beverages.

Key stat: Economic uncertainty has consumers putting off plans for renovations. A majority (51%) of US consumers think the state of the economy makes it a bad time for major purchases like home improvements, according to new data from CivicScience.

• 55% of homeowners have renovation/remodeling projects planned this year, which is down from an average of 62% during 2024, per CivicScience.
• Despite the rough outlook for home improvement, both Home Depot and Lowe's beat Wall Street's estimates in their most recent quarterly earnings.

Key stat: Economy anxiety can't put a lid on luxury shopping. A majority of US consumers (58%) plan to continue spending the same or more on luxury goods in the next three months, according to a January survey from Saks Global.

• Even though only 43% of luxury consumers feel optimistic about the overall economy, per Saks Global.
• 66% of US consumers said they use AI features when shopping for fashion online, according to the data.

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