Canadians to buy used over new in 2025, retail analyst says

Shopping in 2025 might appear a little different, as consumers look to take a more cautious approach to their spending.

Retail analyst Bruce Winder explains that with the continuing political instability, consumer spending behaviour is changing.

“We’re going to continue to see thrifting increase. That was a major trend [in 2024], particularly with Gen Z folks — buying used products, whether it’s through Facebook Marketplace or small local thrift shops, people buying to save money, save the economy, and just sort of get something interesting,” Winder told 1130 NewsRadio.

He expects people will buy fewer discretionary items and save their money for more essential purchases.

“Canada is going through a lot of turbulence right now politically, and that’s causing a lot of turbulence economically,” Winder explained. “So, consumers are very nervous right now.”

“Unemployment is high, interest rates are coming down, which is great, but that takes time to work through the economy. Inflation is sort of in check. But there are still some economic issues, a lot of uncertainty with what’s going to happen with our friends in the U.S. and the tariffs that President-elect Trump may put on.

“So it’s just a bit of a tumultuous time right now for consumers. So I think they’re going to continue to spend fairly cautiously,” he said.

Winder also expects that consumers will see more promotions at retailers who will try to maximize consumer purchases.

A big part of the way retailers offer the deals to customers comes down to their more broad use of artificial intelligence, Winder explains.

“AI has really taken a role to allow brands to serve up very specific offers to consumers that are very relatable. And that’s all based on AI scraping your social media, scraping your Google, your search history, all kinds of things,” he shared.

“They can do that in a nanosecond and come up with an offer that makes sense in terms of where you are in your lifestyle and things of that nature.”

Target in the U.S. recently employed a “search engine” of sorts, Winder explained, where when customers were looking for a gift, it would ask five questions about the person and AI would then recommend specific items based on their answers.

“It’s really interesting. And there’s even been some studies that show corporations that have been using AI have done better financially than those corporations who haven’t,” he said.

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