Economy
05 October 2022
Study: Consumers think food inflation is higher than it really is
The findings from dunnhumby underscore how perception and reality play a role in consumer behavior.

The findings from dunnhumby underscore how perception and reality play a role in consumer behavior.
Consumer behavior can be just as much about perception as it is about data. If there’s a general sense that prices are high or that a downturn has taken hold, consumers could adjust accordingly to account for what’s on the horizon.
This relationship showed up in the recent Consumer Trends Tracker from dunnhumby. The survey of 2,000 US shoppers found that many people believed the inflation for a category of food that includes groceries was higher than it actually is.
According to dunnhumby, Americans believe food at home inflation has hit 22.8%. That’s 9.7 points higher than the 13.1% annual rate that was reported in the most recent Consumer Price Index from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. This perceived rate is also 5.1% higher than it was in February 2022, conducted just after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Food-at-home inflation is a key measure since it includes the regular food that people purchase for day-to-day consumption. Alongside gas, high food prices have been one of the main contributors to this year’s 40-year-high spike in inflation. In recent months, inflation for food has remained elevated across both the overall economy and in ecommerce, even as gas has started to fall.
Along with this gulf in perception, dunnhumby found that behavior has started to change. Other grocery-focused findings of the study state the following:
A dunnhumby chart indicates food insecurity. (Courtesy photo)
To be sure, no matter what the perception indicates, it’s true that inflation is elevated. So it could be argued that consumers are responding rationally to that. But what consumers believe to be the case may also influence the degree to which they change behavior. In other words, if they think things are worse, they may take more drastic steps.Given the signs that are emerging, consumers could soon be factoring an economic downturn into their choices. The dunnhumby findings come as the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates at three consecutive meetings, and is warning of “some pain” ahead. JOLTs data from the US Labor Department issued Tuesday showed that job openings fell to their lowest level in 2.5 years in August, offering one sign that a hot labor market could be cooling off. Just like businesses, consumers will be taking in this data, and adjusting accordingly.
Walmart DSP and Sam's Club are applying first-party data to enhance creative and measurement for advertisers.
(Photo courtesy of Sam's Club)
At its core, retail media is designed to provide advertising within an ecommerce marketplace. But as this nascent area develops, it is quickly expanding beyond the retailer’s website.
This week, two entities under the Walmart Inc. umbrella announced new capabilities that illustrate where retail media can play a role in CTV and in-store sales.
Let’s take a look:
Advertising that appears on a website doesn’t only have the potential to drive online sales. It can also help to propel sales at stores.
A new capability announced this week by Sam’s Club is offering a way to measure across both channels.
The membership club announced that in-store sales can now be attributed to search ads that appear on its ecommerce site.
Sam’s Club said its Member Access Platform will use first-party data on member transactions to determine the revenue that is generated by particular search and sponsored product ads, including for purchases made in a store.
In media measurement, attribution is sought by advertisers as they seek to determine the effectiveness of a given ad or campaign, and where to direct spend in hopes of reaching more consumers. But if an ad in one place leads to a sale in another, it adds complexity to the task of assigning credit for a sale. That’s especially true of offline sales, since there is often less information on the behavior that leads up to the store-based purchase available.
“There’s a huge group of our members who see a search ad online or on their phone when shopping but purchase the product in-club. Previously, it was not possible for our advertisers to connect the in-club purchase to their online ads to know what drove sales,” said Tim Simmons, senior vice president and chief product officer, Sam’s Club, in a statement. “With our new attribution model, advertisers can understand what’s motivating purchases across all channels accurately, especially for search ads.”
With this addition, Sam’s Club said it can now offer “true closed-loop measurement” that crosses online and offline sales. The retailer said overall ROAS has increased by nearly 30% for advertisers that have added in-store sales attribution.
The new offering illustrates how digital commerce is driving both online and offline sales. Media must continue to evolve along with shopper behavior.
Alongside retail media, another fast-growing area of digital advertising is media that appears on streaming services, which is known as CTV (Connected TV). A new partnership shows there are opportunities for the first-party data that powers retail media to serve as a bridge between the store where they shop and the couch where they watch TV.
Walmart’s media arm will work with Innovid to make more personalized creative for CTV available for advertisers through the retailer’s demand side platform.
Innovid will provide “creative personalization, optimization and interactive experiences,” as well as offer ad delivery services.
The integration of Innovid’s Dynamic Creative Optimization technology is designed to improve “relevance and effectiveness” of CTV ad creative that is available on Walmart DSP, which is powered by The Trade Desk..
"Through Walmart DSP, marketers can more effectively reach Walmart's millions of customers across inventory, optimize their media spend, and connect with consumers on highly sought-after platforms like CTV and beyond," said Krista Panoff, SVP of global enterprise development at Innovid.
The partnership will allow advertisers to tap first-party data from Walmart, and apply it to campaigns that reach customers on channels and platforms beyond the retailer’s properties. Walmart DSP provides measurement that crosses both online and offline channels, the retailer added.
This is the second announcement in as many weeks that shows how first-party data from retail media can be applied to enhance CTV. Best Buy and Roku recently announced a partnership that will put the electronic retailer’s first-party data to work for targeting and measurement on Roku streaming devices.
As advertisers seek new ways to efficiently and effectively reach customers on a web that is moving beyond third-party tools and cookies, the partnerships underscore how retailers are in a prime position to provide the purchase-level data that can help to provide results.