Consumers are not feeling so hot in this economy. The Conference Board’s measure of consumer confidence fell again in June, after briefly rebounding in May.

Along those lines, on the quarterly earnings call for General Mills Wednesday morning, the company's CEO said consumers are “pressured by widespread uncertainty.” Because of that, they “expect consumers to remain cautious and continue seeking value."

When retailers say consumers are “value seeking,” what they mostly mean is people are trying to save some money because they’re worried about their economic future. 

“They’re looking at purchasing alternative ingredients, store brands. For travel, they're booking alternative lodging, they're booking lower cost airline fares. They're buying used cars,” said Mike Daher, a U.S. consumer industry leader at Deloitte.

A lot more consumers have been looking for those lower costs for a while now — ever since the big bout of post-pandemic inflation.

Mark Cohen, former director of retail studies at Columbia Business School, said the prospect of tariffs hitting consumer prices soon could keep the trend going.

“We're in for a bumpy ride, and the consumer is going to have to cut back and trade down. That's going to leave winners and losers in the economy with regard to retailers and brands,” he said.

Because, he said, a lot of brands won’t be able to keep a lid on prices as they face higher costs.

They also can’t necessarily use the same tactics now that they did a few years ago. Like shrinkflation.

“You know, same size package, but less in the package. That raised a lot of issues for people around, you know, ‘Do I trust you? I know what you're doing. I'm not stupid,’” said Wendy Liebmann, CEO of WSL Strategic Retail.

Because value seeking, she said, isn’t just about saving money. It’s also about consumers getting better quality and convenience out of the money they do spend. 

Liebmann said that’s why a lot of price-conscious consumers are still opting for Amazon Prime or Walmart Plus subscriptions.

“So they see the value proposition of I'll pay the, whatever it is, 80, $90 a year, so I'm paying more, but actually I'm saving on the transportation to get to the store to save money,” she said.

In times of chaos, Liebmann said, consumers take control any way they can. Retailers just have to respond.