Ahead of tomorrow's World Consumer Rights Day, the Commission has published the 2025 Consumer Conditions Scoreboard, which shows that 68% of European consumers feel confident about the safety of the products that they buy, with 70% trusting that their consumer rights are respected by traders. However, data from the Scoreboard also shows that online risks for consumers persist, including scams, fake reviews, and misleading advertising practices.
Commission takes action to protect consumers
The Commission is taking decisive action to address the challenges faced by consumers across the EU. With the new General Product Safety Regulation in place, consumers are now better protected from being exposed to unsafe products sold online and offline. To address risks from goods sold by non-EU online retailers and marketplaces hosting non-EU traders, the Commission adopted the Communication on E-Commerce package earlier this year. The Commission is also preparing a Digital Fairness Act to reinforce the protection of consumers against harmful practices online, in complementarity with the existing EU digital rulebook.
Following the entry into application of the new rules under the Right to Repair Directive and the Empowering consumers for the green transition Directive in 2026, consumers will also benefit from easier repairs, increased product reuse, and clearer information on durability and reparability.
Key findings of the 2025 Scoreboard
- 70% of consumers agree that retailers and service providers respect consumer rights, while 61% of consumers trust public organisations to protect their rights.
- Cross-border e-commerce is on the rise, with 35% of consumers purchasing from another EU country and 27% buying from outside the EU in 2024.
- Online shoppers are over 60% more likely to experience problems with their purchases, compared to those shopping offline.
- 93% of online shoppers worry over online targeted advertising, including over the collection of personal data, excessive advertising, and personalisation.
- 45% of consumers encountered online scams, and many experienced unfair practices, including fake reviews and misleading discounting.
- Despite a slowing rate of inflation in 2024, and an improvement of consumer sentiment compared to 2022, 38% of consumers expressed concern about their ability to pay their bills, and 35% about affording their preferred food.
- 74% of consumers noticed instances when packaged goods reduce in size, while 52% observed a decline in quality without a corresponding price drop.
- Environmental considerations in purchasing decisions fell 13% since 2022, due to considerations linked to the cost of sustainable products and services and mistrust of the reliability of environmental claims.
Next steps
The results of the Scoreboard will now be discussed with Member States, consumer associations and businesses, and will feed into the preparation of forthcoming initiatives such as the Consumer Agenda 2025-2030 and the Digital Fairness Act .
Background
The Consumer Conditions Scoreboard is a biennial report that monitors consumer sentiment across the EU, as well as in Iceland and Norway. It collects data on national consumers conditions, focusing on knowledge and trust, compliance and enforcement and complaints and dispute resolution. The main data source for the Scoreboard is the Consumer Conditions Survey , which assesses consumer attitudes, behaviours and experience in the Single Market, particularly regarding the respect of consumer rights. For the 2025 report, the survey was carried out in November 2024. Where relevant, data from other sources (e.g. Eurostat, Safety Gate) is used in the Scoreboard to give contextual information.
