More news you won’t hear on TV…

We ended 2005 with the creation of more than 220,000 new jobs in the final 60 days, unemployment holding a tick below 5%….inspite of the war, people grumbling about gas prices, credit card companies increasing minimum monthly payments, and relentless media portrayal of the economy as “bad” — consumer spending during the holiday season again increased by more than was originally projected
by the National Retail Federation.

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The most important trend for marketers is the rapidly increasing “mass affluent” class of customers, and that is where the greatest growth is in almost every category, including food and restaurants, clothes, home furnishings, and automobiles. Purchasing on “new luxury goods” is booming. Product Example: Whirlpool’s Duet front-load washer/dryer, which sells for $2,300.00 vs. $600.00 to $800.00 for a run of the mill set. This product has greater capacity and washes clothes in half the time, and busy consumers view time saved as a luxury well worth paying for.

Don’t make the uneducated mistake of thinking people don’t have money. YOU choose your prospects!

— Chris

More news you won’t hear on TV…

Every year, the newspapers and TV talking heads make dire predictions about how bad the holiday shopping season will be, how bad sales will be for the nation’s retailers. They have been wrong four of the last five years. This year, no exception. In mid-October, it started in earnest – daily droning on about how worried retailers were, how high gas prices, heating bills, hurricanes, the war, etc. would surely ruin retailers’ selling season.

However, the National Retail Federation concluded a complex analysis of the months ahead and released a detailed study in September, projecting a solid 5% or better increase in retail sales 4th quarter of 2005 vs. the prior year’s 4th quarter. On October 31st , Ellen Davis of the Federation appeared on Neil Cavuto’s show on FOX News and affirmed the Federation’s projections for a robust, successful holiday retail season.

In fact, the Federation’s analysts now believe that recent meteorologists’ forecasts of milder winter temperatures in the northeast and Midwest may serve to spur an even healthier increase in retail sales this year. These positive predictions are rarely and sparingly reported – and even when they are, most commentators add their completely unqualified gloom-and-doom opinion, saying something like “…but it could be really bad if we go into a deep freeze and heating costs skyrocket.” Nuts to ‘em.