Consumer confidence declined again in March as Americans’ outlook about future conditions darkened amid worries about inflation and tariffs. 

The Conference Board’s Expectations Index — based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business and labor market conditions — dropped 9.6 points in March to 65.2, the lowest level in 12 years. The cutoff date for preliminary results was March 19, 2025.

In other results, The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell 7.2 points in March to 92.9. The Present Situation Index — based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions — decreased 3.6 points to 134.5.

March’s fall in confidence was driven by consumers over 55 years old and, to a lesser extent, those between 35 and 55 years old. By contrast, confidence rose slightly among consumers under 35, as an uptick in their assessments of the present situation more than offset gloomier expectations.

The decline was also broad-based across income groups, with the only exception being households earning more than $125,000 a year.

Amidst all this gloom and doom, convenience stores, in particular, are doing just fine, thank you very much!

In a recent study, while issues like increasing operational costs and uncertainty over the future state of the U.S. economy are keeping the convenience store industry's small operators (those operating 20 stores or less) up at night, a higher percentage of them was optimistic in their expectations than as reported in a study conducted a year ago.

"The economy is getting better and prices are coming down," one small operator remarked.

Still, the c-store industry is concerned about issues that have the biggest impact on their profitability, such as rising operational costs and ability to hire and retain sufficient amount of personnel.

It’s not surprising then, that at least 36% of the small operators expect to increase their store count this year.

In order to achieve this goal, and compete with the big chains on a more equal footing, it helps to have all the assistance one can get. Ticon, a location intelligence consulting firm, provides just such a kind of assistance with its renown Site Selection reports.

So, when you need to do site selection and retail site location analysis for your next store, ask Ticon for the most reliable, accurate and granular data you can find – we got it for you. Historical traffic data, accurate traffic counts, demographic analysis and economic stats, sales forecast – we have it all for you, just a click away.

By having all this information produced from impeccably accurate data by highly capable traffic engineers, Ticon is able to offer you the key for usiness location analysis for your future stores, and to improve the performance of the stores you already own and operate.

It’s like having a full department of traffic engineers and data analysts working for you – only without the cost the big companies have to pay for this luxury.