Shoppers facing 'new economic reality' change behaviour
By Anthony Reuben
Business reporter, BBC News
31 October 2012 Last updated at 00:20

Tesco says customers are taking greater pride in finding value
UK consumers are feeling worse about the economy than they did last month, despite the end of recession, the latest consumer confidence survey from financial research firm GfK says.

Retailers say this is causing a change in shoppers' spending habits.

Last week, the boss of Debenhams said: "We believe customers are acclimatised to the new economic reality."

The boss of Tesco told BBC News his customers were, "resigned that this is the new norm".

"They don't have great expectations that things are going to improve in the short term," he said.

In 2008 and 2009, retailers say, people were spending like they were expecting a recovery, believing that if they kept their jobs their wages would rise with inflation.

Four years on, rising fuel prices and sub-inflation pay rises are hitting their spending power, and they cannot see where an improvement is going to come from.

While there was more growth than had been expected in the UK economy in the three months to the end of September, many analysts are predicting another contraction in the final quarter of the year.

'No going back'

"There is a new mindset among consumers," said Patrick O'Brien from the retail analysts Verdict Research.

"Even a year or two ago it was possible things would return to how they were before the credit bubble burst in 2008, but now it is clear there is no going back."

Consumers are responding by going to greater lengths to save money.

In a blog posting, Tesco chief executive Philip Clarke said that more than half of visits to the company's website were by people checking prices.

Tesco responded with aggressive use of more personalised vouchers and then