Goodbye to the golden age of consumer choice

Goodbye to the golden age of consumer choice

Anyone who has entered a supermarket recently knows that groceries are more expensive. The prices of many items, from cat food to coffee, are rising and they are harder to transport around the world swiftly in an era of high inflation and snarled supply chains.

There was a subtler consumer warning this week as investors ran scared of technology companies and shares kept on falling. “In times of uncertainty, investors look for safety . . . Channelling Jerry Maguire, we need to show them the money,” Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief executive, told staff.

Shoppers have enjoyed a spectacular bounty for more than a decade — not only in the price and availability of everyday goods and services, but in an explosion of consumer technology and innovation. That experience is in doubt now: if the golden age of the consumer is not yet dead, it looks quite poorly.

A combination of high inflation and rising interest rates, which are puncturing many high-risk investments, from cryptocurrency to venture capital, are already having an effect. But the impact of the latter has yet to work its way through, and will create more pain.

Inflation and the crisis of affordability has pushed many shoppers back to basics. With energy bills rising sharply,