Kurt Barnard
Kurt Barnard
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There's a general sense of weakness and caution and I'll tell you the headlines in the newspapers these days do not help, ... We're seeing more layoffs and consumers are beginning to feel there's a cold winter breeze suddenly blowing their way.
beginning blowing breeze caution cold consumers days general headlines layoffs newspapers seeing suddenly weakness winter
There's a general sense of weakness and caution and I'll tell you, the headlines in the newspapers these days do not help. We're seeing more layoffs and consumers are beginning to feel there's a cold winter breeze suddenly blowing their way.
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Today, (consumers) are beginning to realize they have to do some buying, but there isn't that much money yet after gas and what they've already bought at Wal-Mart.
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Everybody is worried about a soft landing for the economy and a contraction of consumer spending. And come Christmas it will be far less exciting than a year ago. The high cost at the gas pump is beginning to take its toll and for a lot of families spending an extra $20-to-$25 a month on gasoline means spending that much less on stores.
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It was disappointing. A lot of stores told us that when they opened at 7 or 8 in the morning with special deals good for two hours, crowds were beginning to mass. But at the stroke of 9, when those sales were supposed to end, the crowds disappeared like a snowflake in the palm of your hand.
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We're seeing clearance sales that are early by at least three to four weeks. Going back to the beginning of summer they had a lot of inventory on hand and they need to get rid of it, ... Second-quarter earnings are going to reflect the markdowns. Everybody has been caught in the downdraft.
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I think Conaway is a good retailing executive, but he made too many mistakes at the very beginning of his tenure at Kmart. It is quite possible that his background and length of experience did not sufficiently qualify him for the immense job he was taking on.
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Halloween has become in recent times a little more of a retail-type holiday than you've seen it in decades past. It's becoming a little more important not just for sales of scary masks, but there generally is more traffic into the stores. It's sort of the beginning of fall, something like the precursor for what's to come.
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What the Gap is doing is not only what it must be doing, but what it should have done a long time ago.
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What's happening is very simple. The numbers we saw today are clear evidence that the American public is shell-shocked to the point of being frightened over a big long list of circumstances surrounding the economy over which they have no power, no control.
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The worst part of these results is that they show that the effect of the tax rebate checks has petered out. This is a nightmare in itself for retailers and it doesn't bode well for Christmas. Also, we'll probably see more markdowns now, more than retailers anticipated for the holidays. That will hurt their bottom line.
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They are all planning very cautiously, very carefully. Some companies have very decent inventory controls, but however good those controls are they still have to do some economic forecasting, and forecasting is a little difficult this time around. Nobody is going to spring for big orders until there's evidence that consumer demand is back, and there is no such evidence to date.
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The sales clear evidence of modest consumer spending slow down. We expect a decent holiday sales season, but an unspectacular one. The last three have been spectacular, particularly the last one.
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Early indications show that store traffic and the promotional activity is at lower levels than last year at this time. I wouldn't be surprised if many retailers try to get away with selling merchandise at full price.