Analysis-Central Europe’s shoppers still shell-shocked even as inflation ebbs

When a $500 Electrolux oven briefly went on sale for 1% of its list price in Hungary last week, within hours shoppers flooded the online store with thousands of orders. “We expect weak consumer sentiment to persist in the European market in 2024 as consumers opt for lower prices and delay non-essential or occasional expenditure,” Peter Toth, head of Central and Eastern Europe South sales area at Electrolux, told Reuters when asked about the health of demand on the European Union’s eastern wing. The reality across the region is that there are scant signs of a recovery in consumption that governments were counting on to offset weaker demand for exports from a stuttering German economy and pull the region out from last year’s inflation-led downturn.