McKinsey Quarterly publishes a paper detailing how the recession has changed the U.S. consumer behavior. This information is timely and very useful to businesses, especially during these times.

Some of the findings are:

• In any given category, an average of 18 percent of consumer-packaged-goods consumers bought lower-priced brands in the past two years.
• Of the consumers who switched to cheaper products, 46 percent said they performed better than expected, and the large majority of these consumers said the performance of such products was much better than expected.
• As a result, 34 percent of the switchers said they no longer preferred higher-priced products.
• An additional 41 percent said that while they preferred the premium brand, it “was not worth the money.

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