“Third quarter was volatile and challenging for global economies and financial markets amid stagnant U.S. unemployment figures and a worsening euro zone debt crisis,” said Dr. Venkatesh Bala, Chief Economist at The Cambridge Group, a part of Nielsen. “A recessionary mindset is growing among consumers.”

Consumers today are increasingly mobile and as technology advancements continue around the world, retailing will evolve to keep pace. And while online shopping has shown impressive growth momentum over the past few years in industries such as travel, publishing, electronics and even clothing, the pace of change has been much slower for consumer-packaged goods.

While many consumers, particularly in North America, report stocking up as the primary reason for making a trip to the grocery store, that reason is not uniformly widespread across the globe, according to Nielsen’s 2011 Global Online Survey.

Nearly six in 10 (59%) global consumers look for sales to save on household expenses—the leading saving strategy of eight measured across all regions and most prevalent in North America (73%) and Europe (60%), according to Nielsen’s 2011 Global Online Survey of more than 25,000 Internet respondents across 51 countries. Using coupons was the second most popular saving strategy, used by nearly half (48%) of global online consumers.

Consumers around the world continue their broad efforts to save money at the checkout counter, but while low prices are important to shoppers, getting a good value for their money takes priority.

A recent survey of the top 300 advertising agencies in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, which was undertaken by Nielsen on behalf of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) in Latin America, underlined the tremendous growth potential of mobile media in the region.

Latin America endured the global recession much better than North America or Europe, and today it stands out as one of the stronger regions for economic growth.

The U.S. market, which faced six straight quarters of declines in ad spending, has seen a turnaround in 2010, with a 3.8 percent increase year-over-year.

Nielsen probed consumers’ attitudes towards health and beauty products—where they purchased them and what factors went into their buying decisions—as part of its Global Online Survey of more than 27,000 people.

The Nielsen Company conducted an online survey in March 2010 of more than 27,000 consumers in 55 markets to get a better sense of the steps being taken to save money in view of uncertain economic conditions.