CEO News, February 2023

Purchases have been trending upwards on prior year for the past seven months now, after having declined for almost ten months in succession from July 2021 to May 2022. The last two months have seen a softening against the significant spike noted in November last year, however.

The collective moving annual total purchases depicted in the chart below largely reflects stronger member trading over the past quarter, but the outlook for the period ahead is still expected to be driven by the impact of both inflationary pressures and related consumer confidence as mentioned in the macro-outlook earlier.