Kurt Barnard
Kurt Barnard
consumers forget found items operators store talking
We found out, from talking to consumers and store operators all over the country, that low-dollar items went very fast. Forget about high-end items.
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Retailing and consumer spending are a function of a four-letter word -- jobs. And there are no jobs being formed in the United States at the present time. We are in an unfortunate labor climate, one that might be called not at all propitious for retail spending.
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It wasn't surprising really. The August same-store numbers really confirm the trend of slowing retail sales and consumer spending, ... August was the back-to-school that wasn't. August and back-to-school doesn't quite have the importance it did a decade ago, but outside of that make no mistake, consumer spending has slowed down and Americans are tapped out.
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Consumer spending is avoiding the mall-based, high-priced stores and is now drifting rapidly to the discount and low-priced segment.
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High-end stores depend on continued spending from clients that over the past four years have amassed considerable wealth. Sales at upscale stores like Saks and Neiman Marcus are also going strong because the stock market has been very customer friendly to this group.
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All our surveys and research have demonstrated that consumer spending is very slow in growing and contracting. It resists change. We can expect this to last quite a while.
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This has become a very serious disruption in what could otherwise be a much better consumer spending climate,
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Americans, for one reason or another, have not given up on their infatuation with SUVs that guzzle gas by the gallons. But there's only so much money to go around. If people are paying more to drive their cars, they will have less money to spend on other things.
forecast hopefully layoffs pace pickup sales until
I think the NRF forecast is hopefully optimistic. I don't see a pickup in sales until the pace of layoffs slows down.
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I think the NRF forecast is hopefully optimistic, ... I don't see a pickup in sales until the pace of layoffs slows down.
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I think the future lies in two different kinds of Internet players. The one is the bricks and clicks, and that will be the dominant factor in the business, ... The other one will be highly specialized pure play click operations that carry things, do things that are simply not available elsewhere through other channels.
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This is really the surprise of the year. We should have really anticipated it because suddenly the weather turned very cold.
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It is a good time if you're willing to accept slow growth and slow improvement. We do not anticipate at this time that the foreseeable future will bring a real strong massive upturn in consumer spending.
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Retail sales of Martha Stewart products won't suffer in a terminal way because right now Kmart needs Martha more than Martha needs Kmart. Her products are selling well because people really like them.