| RPW 11-17-09 |
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Volume 3 - Issue 44
11/17/2009
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Frugality Fatigue: The Consumer Comes Out of Her Foxhole. Are You Ready?
By Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner
I’m not quite sure exactly when it happened. You could get a slight sense of it in June, even though it wasn’t showing in comparable store sales. The “cash for clunkers” program in the US made a bit of a statement – but the pundits thought that would just trade sales from one month to another. We felt October would tell the tale, partly because of Halloween sales. Now the secret’s out. Comparable store sales are up, and it seems that the consumer is coming out of her foxhole. We don’t pretend to say retail is back at 2007 spending levels. The era of conspicuous consumption is still dead and unemployment still high.
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Retalix Customer Panel
By Nikki Baird, Managing Partner
At Retalix's Synergy conference last week in Dallas, the customer panel, moderated by Michael Sansolo, offered some fantastic insights that I just had to share. The customers on the panel included representatives from Love's Travel Stops, Big Y Foods, and Roche. None of the panelists has yet to see a softening in the economic downturn.
In fact, Love's almost serves as an early indicator... Read more
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The New Battle of the Ages
By Brian Kilcourse, Managing Partner
Back in the early days of television, a show entitled “Battle of the Ages” aired that pitted a team of adults against a team of kids to win the “most talented team” prize. It’s ironic that the show ran in the early days of the post-war Baby Boomer generation, because it’s being replayed in the job market right now, on the other side of the Boomer generation’s time on this planet. It’s certainly no secret that most Boomers aren’t boomed out yet, and given what’s happened to retirement accounts in the last two years that’s not likely to change soon.
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