Average EU purchasing power reached €22,425 per capita in 2025, a nominal increase of 3.3%, with the strongest gains recorded in Poland, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria, reflecting continued economic convergence between Eastern and Western Europe. Retail turnover growth slowed to 2.1% in 2025, down from 5.5% in 2023, with Norway, Lithuania, Sweden, Bulgaria and Slovakia posting the strongest gains while several large Western European markets, including the United Kingdom, saw turnover decline.

The study's central finding is that rising incomes are no longer translating automatically into higher retail spending: as the study's lead author put it, retail turnover continues to grow, but "an increasing share of consumer budgets is flowing into services and experiences." Regional disparities in retail's share of consumption remain wide, from 48.3% in Croatia to just 22.2% in Germany, while EU inflation stabilised at 2.5% in 2025 before an expected rise to 3.1% in 2026, a dynamic that leaves retailers competing not only with each other but increasingly with the broader services economy for a shrinking share of household budgets.

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