BUYERS BEWARE RETAILERS ARE OUT TO GET YOU … TO SPEND AGAIN
BUYERS BEWARE RETAILERS ARE OUT TO GET YOU … TO SPEND AGAIN
Retailers are making major changes from the way they have gone about business in the past, when customers were aplenty and the spending seemed to never end … ahh the good old days … but the times they are a changing as the song goes.
Retailers reeling from the pain of a holiday season of shoppers who cut spending by the most dramatic amount in at least 39 years, have been scrambling ever since trying new strategies and concepts to bring customers back to the register.
They are cutting out marginal suppliers creating a leaner inventory and hiring outside experts to analyze where they can increase sales, examining methods specific to their particular markets, as well as targeting the clientele that is still buying and making new roads to insure customer satisfaction shoppers have never seen before.
Primarily this is actually good news for consumers who will see an array of products at lower price points, from the ordinary supermarket groceries to designer brand names you could only put on your wish list in the past. Pricing consumer goods for debt ridden and an anxious customer base is the primary goal in hopes of bringing the customers back in.
Luxury retailers such as Neiman Marcus are getting creative too, by eliminating some vendors and focusing on serving its best customers. They are trying to retrain it’s customers to buy regular-price goods by hosting more frequent smaller private events for groups of 20 to 30 clients. Weaning customers off discounts is a big challenge for the industry because consumers have gotten so used to them.
As shoppers simply stopped buying, stores were forced to discount as much as 75% in some instances even before the holiday season began; resulting in the weakest season since at least 1969, when the ICSC index began keeping retail statistics.
Alas my words of caution for you the consumers struggling with debt, up to your ears in debt, just plain tired of debt, beware of the friendly vendors who are out there inviting you to come back, because if you’re on a debt diet and trying to stick to it, you just remember … the retailer is out to get you … to spend again! Don’t get yourself stuck in debt, or worse yet find yourself having to consider debt cosolidation unless absolutely necessary.
Tags: debt cosolidation