HDE consumption barometer index in Germany 2022-2024

The German Retail Federation (Handelsverband Deutschland - HDE) is an organization of about 300 thousand independent companies in the German retail sector.

The HDE consumption barometer is based on a monthly survey of households, which is conducted by the market research institute YouGov. Each month, the sample includes around 2,000 households and is representative of the population. The HDE consumption barometer uses a pool of selected questions about the future (expectations for the next three months). It relies on six questions, through which expectations for purchase and saving propensity, income development, economic development, as well as the development of interest and price levels are evaluated. The answer categories for individual questions are based on a five-step Likert scale (much less - somewhat less - equal - somewhat more - much more).
To calculate the results, points from one to five are applied to the individual answers. Finally, the average value of all responses is calculated for each question. Since extreme values on the answer scale indicate more significant changes in behavior, it is weighted more heavily. For the current barometer value, individual average answers are added. During the calculation process, different weighting factors are applied to the answers to the six questions, which take into account the respective influence on consumption.