Posts Tagged ‘consumerism’

Pedestrian Thoughts

Friday, October 9th, 2009

Lego
Lego has opened its first concept store in Concord Mills, located north of Charlotte, NC. The 4,520 square foot store has been designed to create an interaction between children with on-site master builders. The store has room for birthday parties and classes.

    Versace
    Recently announced it was closing all thirty (30) of its stores in Japan.

New World
A new world is likely to emerge in which designers rebel against long lead times and where they take their collections directly to the consumer through their own boutiques, trunk shows, and over the web.

    Web Sales
    Web sales are projected to reach $156 billion in 2009, representing 6% of the total U.S. retail pie

The Web Fashion Consumer
Consumers have come to expect new merchandise more frequently, thanks to the web and fast fashion retailers such as H & M. Many cannot understand why they have to wait 6 months to see the fashions seen on the runways. Buyers at department stores generally base their orders on the past, while fashion editors gravitate to the most photogenic and future looking styles, leaving the consumer stuck in the middle. This results in one facet of the fashion industry looking forward and the other looking backwards. The consequence: a consumer on one hand is told what to buy but on the other, not where to buy it.

    In response, a new generation of fashion retailers is emerging on the web where news is freely given and fashion is sold. Net-a-porter with average sales of $820.00 per transaction and customers from 170 countries is one example of this new generation of merchants. The company has successfully merged its web retail site with a fashion news site catering to a new consumer who wants credible news over magazine advertisements and the most up to date fashion now.


Entertainment
Families spent 5.1% more on entertainment in 2008 than in 2009, something that has surprised many economists. As consumers tightened their pocket books and wallets one would expect entertainment to be one of the first categories to see significant decreases. But the 5.1% increase in spending equated to 16.5 billion more dollars spent in the category over 2007.

    Household debt
    The American family is trying to put money into savings and reduce their overall debt, but they are clearly not faring as well as one might expect in this recession. Household debt now amounts to about 125% of after tax income.

High Net Worth Individuals
Luxury retailers are faced with a significant decline in Americans with a high net worth defined as having $1,000,000 of assets available for investment. In 2008 the assets of these individuals dropped by as much as 22%. The result is a major decrease in sales at retailers such as Neiman Marcus where sales have decreased by over 20% in 2009 over 2008.

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Consumer Trends Brief

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Micro-transactions on the web

  • Consumers are proving that there is a market for small dollar amounts for on-line content.   Ring tones, cheap internet calls through Skype, iTunes and more are ringing up big dollar amounts on micro-transactions.  It was once believed that consumers would not pay for on-line content and the only way to profit was through on-line advertising and monthly subscription services.  Now advertising revenue for the time being is not as profitable as once thought and consumers expect information to be free.

Home accessories, a luxury in a down market

  • Little luxuries in depressed times cheer people up.  In the down market designers of big ticket furniture items are facing a major challenge.  A few smart ones are adding well designed home accessory collections to their offerings.  But this is not just about pure design; consumers also want functional products that are long lasting, something that the discounters do not provide. Consumers of high quality furniture are attracted to premium materials and finishes and high levels of craftsmanship.
  • Home gift and table top retailer recently engaged famed British Architect Zaha Hadid to design a collection for the company.
  • Unlike big ticket furniture, home accessories can change by the season to better reflect both design and fashion trends.

Aspirational and luxury retail taking a hit

  • Luxury brands in the recent economic boom of 2003-2007 focused on their existing trade with a greater variety of high priced goods, but often with perceptible reductions in quality.   The luxury brands also sought to expand their empire by attracting new aspirational consumers by opening more points of purchase to reach a larger market and by developing new products at lower price points for those who aspired to step up to the brand.  This resulted in more consumers paying more for premium goods.  But just a few years later, the consumer at all levels has traded down and perhaps to never return to the same level of consumption, in this generation.

(more…)

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