In a recent survey by the charity Retail Trust, it shows that one in four, that is roughly a quarter of Brits use shopping as a means to relieve stress, with little or no regard to their ever increasing personal debts, with 40% of the 18-24 year old bracket being the most likely of the age ranges to do so.
Those working in the service industry, for example hotels/restaurants are twice as likely to buy in order to alleviate stress than any other profession.
People living in Wales came out top for stress related shopping, surprisingly ahead of London and the West Midlands. As for the rest, they would appear to shop for the absolute pleasure of it, with retailers perhaps surprisingly coming out top of this category since they spend all their working hours in this type of environment.
This type of behaviour only adds to the already mounting personal debts we are accruing in Britain.
The retail and service industries also come out on top for debt with 10% of supermarket employees stating they owed more than 100% of their income in personal debt and 8% of retail employees admit they owe 71% or more of their annual salary in debt.
Men tend to be in debt more than women, with 32% of them owing up to 20% of their income.
Another change is noticed in the pattern of when we actually do our shopping. He emphasis is shifting towards shopping becoming an earl morning activity. This would appear to be a result of changing work patterns. There are still surges at the weekend, but 14% of men and 22% of women registered their responses confirming that they do indeed take advantage of shops’ earlier opening hours. Retailers and those involved in agriculture are the main respondents who use this facility.
Finally on the geography front, those living in the West Midlands and the North East would seem to have the highest levels of personal debt according to the survey, compared to Yorkshire and the North West, who register at the other end of the scale.
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