Luxury consumers are looking to avoid wasting more, travel more and spend less on luxury goods.

That’s in keeping with the most recent Saks Luxury Pulse, revealed Wednesday. It points to “a deceleration in spending on luxury goods as consumers focus more on savings and travel.”

Saks’ Luxury Pulse is a quarterly online survey of luxury consumers’ attitudes toward shopping, spending and fashion trends. It relies on responses from 3,744 U.S.-based respondents over age 18 and was most recently fielded between April 28 and May 1.

Amongst the important thing findings: 53 percent of the respondents are planning to spend the identical or more on luxury in the subsequent three months in comparison with the previous three months, which implies 47 percent of those surveyed will spend less.

By comparison, the previous Saks Luxury Pulse, fielded in late January, indicated that 62 percent of the respondents would spend the identical or more on luxury, meaning 38 percent would spend less.

The findings are further evidence of a slowdown within the U.S. luxury market, which also has been highlighted by all the key European luxury houses as they reported their financial results over the past month. While still increasing, many of the groups — from LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton to Chanel, Hermès and Compagnie Financière Richemont — have said their U.S. sales have substantially decelerated over the previous couple of months at the same time as China has picked up after pandemic-related lockdowns were eased.

Saks, which operates the Saks.com luxury website, concluded that luxury consumers are feeling increasingly concerned concerning the overall economy. But Saks also concluded that 67 percent remain optimistic about their personal financial situation.

“Consistent with our strategy and expectations for the 12 months, the luxurious consumer is responding to the economic environment and tapering their spending on luxury items,” Marc Metrick, chief executive officer of Saks, said in an announcement. “As we have now taken steps to make sure Saks is best positioned to navigate the remainder of the 12 months, the most recent Saks Luxury Pulse findings reinforce our confidence in our strategy. We’re pleased to see that at the same time as they reprioritize their spending, consumers still have an appetite for luxury goods. Given the luxurious consumer’s history of resilience, we anticipate their spending will likely be reinvigorated when the economic environment begins to enhance.”

Emily Essner, Saks’ chief marketing officer, added, “Insights from the Saks Luxury Pulse help us optimize our content, whether through our curated arrays on Saks.com, our social media content or our personalized customer communications, so it’s most relevant to our customers and reflects their interests. Our customers have indicated that they’ve a desire to update their wardrobes, which serves as a chance for us to offer them with more fashion discovery as their personal style continues to evolve.” 

Asked what steps Saks has taken to navigate the remainder of this 12 months, Essner told WWD via email, “This 12 months, we have now an increased deal with driving scale and efficiency at Saks, and a key a part of that’s using advanced data analytics and personalization to optimize our interactions with customers. Using machine-learning algorithms powered by first-party data from across the Saks Fifth Avenue ecosystem, 90 percent of our customer emails currently feature personalized messaging, helping drive engagement with customers, which is essential given the present environment. 

“We’re also strategically emphasizing our use of Saks Live, our live commerce platform, again as an efficient and scalable mechanism for driving customer engagement. In [the first quarter], we presented 40 Saks Lives and AOV for this initiative was 60 percent higher than that of the location.” 

Asked if luxury shoppers are likely to spend more freely while traveling for vacation, Essner said, “Our business advantages when consumers exit and travel as they search out latest fashion for these occasions. In the most recent Saks Luxury Pulse survey, 77 percent of respondents said they’re planning to or have already booked a visit within the near future and, of those, 74 percent said they plan to purchase luxury items in preparation for his or her trips. We also received a couple of anecdotal responses within the survey, with respondents sharing that they buy more after they travel and that shopping is an element of their travel itinerary, reinforcing the concept that shopping and traveling go hand-in-hand.”

Forty-nine percent of those surveyed felt their wardrobe is outdated and desires a refresh, and plenty of proceed to embrace “the quiet luxury trend and put money into timeless and cozy pieces.”

In other findings from the most recent Saks Luxury Pulse suggesting less inclination to spend on luxury, 57 percent of respondents with an income of $200,000 or more plan to spend the identical or more on luxury in the subsequent three months, down from 68 percent within the January survey. 

Also, 57 percent of Millennial respondents plan to spend the identical or more on luxury in the subsequent three months, down from 64 percent within the January survey.

Asked what would motivate greater looking for luxury, 43 percent of those respondents who plan to spend less said they would want to see improvement in the general economy.

Fifty-four percent of those that plan to spend less said that they’d be enticed by a sale or promotional event “reinforcing an ongoing interest in looking for luxury,” Saks indicated.

Eighty-two percent of respondents plan to prioritize saving the identical or more in the subsequent three months in comparison with the last three months.

Seventy-seven of respondents are planning to or have already booked a visit within the near future. Of those, 74 percent said they plan to purchase luxury items in preparation for his or her trips.