Key findings of 2025 Consumer Conditions Scoreboard
European Commission biennial report monitors consumer sentiment across the EU, Iceland and Norway
The European Commission recently published the results of the 2025 Consumer Conditions Scoreboard. This biennial report monitors consumer sentiment across the EU, Iceland and Norway. The primary data source is the Consumer Conditions Survey, which assesses consumer attitudes, behaviours and experience in the Single Market.
The results of the 2025 Scoreboard provide key insights into several important consumer topics, including: the impact on the high cost of living on consumers; attitudes toward online shopping and targeted advertising; the influence of environmental considerations on purchasing decisions; how consumers handle defective products; concerns about product safety; and consumers’ trust in entities to respect their rights.
Regarding the high cost of living, the 2025 Scoreboard revealed that 38% of the respondents (Malta: 45%) expressed concern about their ability to pay bills. Furthermore, 74% (Malta: 63%) noticed packaged goods shrinking in size and 52% (Malta: 47%) observed a decline in product quality.
Online shopping and the use of digital services continue to increase across Europe. According to the Consumer Conditions Survey, 76% of EU consumers (Malta: 72%) now buy goods and services online, reflecting a 5% increase since 2022 at the EU level. The survey also indicated a rise in the number of consumers purchasing online from both other EU countries and non-EU countries, highlighting the continued growth of cross-border e-commerce.
In Malta, almost all consumers who faced a problem actively pursued a complaint
Despite its growing popularity, online shopping comes with challenges. According to the 2025 Consumer Conditions Survey’s findings, 26% of online shoppers reported issues that warranted a complaint, compared to just 16% of offline shoppers who reported problems. Eurostat data (2023) highlights specific problems encountered by online shoppers, including orders arriving later than originally indicated, difficulty in using websites, and problems in handling complaints related to online purchases.
The Scoreboard also reveals increasing consumer concerns about online targeted advertising and fraud. Concerning the latter, 45% of consumers (Malta: 44%) reported encountering online scams, with the most common being fake requests for money and phishing attempts to steal personal information.
Additionally, many consumers experienced unfair practices online, with 66% claiming to have come across fake consumer reviews and 61% noticing discounts that seemed too large to be genuine.
Despite high awareness of the environmental impact of consumption, the influence on purchasing decisions has declined. Only 43% of respondents (Malta: 45%), considered environmental factors in at least one or two of their purchases in the previous two weeks from the date of the survey, marking a 13% drop since 2022. In contrast, Malta’s percentage remained unchanged at 45%.
Consideration of environmental impact varied by factors such as age, education level, and financial situation. Younger, more educated and better off consumers were more likely to consider the environmental impact of their choices.
Consumers identified several barriers to sustainable consumption, with cost and uncertainty being key challenges. 67% of consumers (Malta: 59%) said that high costs prevented them from buying sustainable products and services.
Trust in environmental claims across the EU also declined between 2022 and 2024. Only 50% of respondents agreed that most environmental claims about products and services are reliable, representing a six percentage point drop since 2022. In contrast, Malta saw a significant increase, with 75% of respondents in 2024 trusting environmental claims, compared to 53% in 2022.
The 2025 Scoreboard also provides insights into how consumers handle defective products and their trust in traders. 40% of consumers (Malta: 71%) said they would replace a defective product, while 35% (Malta: 18%) would opt for a repair. The main barriers to repair were high costs and the effort required.
In 2024, 24% of EU consumers (Malta: 39%) reported experiencing a problem when buying goods or services in their own country. Of these, nearly 75% of EU consumers took action by filing a complaint. In Malta, almost all consumers who faced a problem actively pursued a complaint.
Satisfaction with complaint resolution declined significantly across the EU from 2022 to 2024, but in Malta, it remained stable at 58%. Malta was one of only seven EU member states where consumer satisfaction with complaint resolution did not decrease.
Overall, consumers express confidence in traders’ fairness, with 70% (Malta: 63%) agreeing that retailers and service providers respect consumer rights. However, many consumers lack a solid understanding of their rights. While 29% of European consumers (Malta: 29%), demonstrated high knowledge of their rights, 35% (Malta: 36%) had low knowledge.
The 2025 Consumer Conditions Scoreboard also assessed European consumers’ confidence in the safety of the products they buy. 68% of EU consumers (Malta: 66%) are generally confident that products are safe. Consumers also show significant awareness of product recalls, with 56% of EU consumers (Malta: 55%) having experienced a recall in the last two years, and 13% (Malta: 10%) experiencing a recall for a product they owned.
The data for the 2025 Consumer Conditions Scoreboard was collected through surveys conducted by telephone in November 2024, among representative samples of the public aged 18 and over in each 27 EU member state, as well as Iceland and Norway.
The sample size was 1,000 per country, except in Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus and Iceland, where the sample size was 500.
Odette Vella is director, Information and Research Directorate, MCCAA.