Consumer spending remained muted through August, although face-to-face merchants saw sales rebound slightly after three months of decline.

Visa’s Irish Consumer Spending Index, which measures expenditure across all payment types, pointed to a marginal rise in expenditure year-on-year in August. Spending was up 0.4%, cancelling out a 0.3% reduction in July.

Both e-commerce and face-to-face expenditure increased during August, the first time that this has been the case since April. Spending on the high street was up 0.3% year-on-year.

The rate of expansion in e-commerce spending was also slight in August (+0.7% year-on-year), and slower than that recorded in July.

Online expenditure has now risen in two successive months following a marginal decline in June.

In Association with

All but two of the eight monitored sectors saw spending increase on an annual basis in August. Growth was led by the Hotels, Restaurants & Bars category, where expenditure was up 5.0%, a stronger expansion than in July.

Solid increases were also recorded in the Health & Education (+4.1%) and Household Goods (+4.0%) categories.

Food & Drink, meanwhile, posted a return to growth in August, with a rise of +2.7% year-on-year ending a three-month sequence of decline. Modest increases in expenditure were seen in the Recreation & Culture (+1.4%) and Transport & Communication (+0.7%) sectors.

Reductions in spend were registered in Clothing & Footwear (-2.6%) and Miscellaneous Goods & Services (-5.4%).

“Irish consumer spending remains flat, but there was a number of positive developments this month,” said Philip Konopik (pictured), Ireland country manager with Visa.

The Visa spending index is produced by IHS Markit. Andrew Harker, associate director with the company, said that consumers appear to be operating on a wait-and-see approach, with uncertainty around the final outcome of Brexit still prevalent.

“The signs are, however, that households are becoming more worried about spending, with consumer confidence at a near five-year low,” Harker added. “There was some positive news for the high street, however, with spending there up for the first time in four months.”