Kurt Barnard
Kurt Barnard
gap time
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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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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Even the most loyal customers won't be able to resist a very good bargain. And by the time the loyal customer has bought all the Wal-Mart bargains, there won't be very much left for Target.
adding changes consumer devoted dollars hard home implies kitchens sales spending spent thousands time
Consumer spending is heavily devoted to hard goods. That implies for the most part that home-oriented things have been doing well for some time, ... Home sales have been skyrocketing. Every time a home changes hands, tens of thousands of dollars are spent on decorating, furnishings, adding new kitchens and bathrooms.
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It is time that Manhattan got itself its first really splendid discount store, so the sale opens the door to the arrival of Target, or maybe even Wal-Mart.
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The August figures this time are basically not very reliable for anything whatsoever. A lot of the Labor Day activity will come in September this year.
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It is a good time if you're willing to accept slow growth and slow improvement. We do not anticipate at this time that the foreseeable future will bring a real strong massive upturn in consumer spending.
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Today's (consumer confidence) numbers do very little other than to simply confirm what we had predicted some time ago, that a consumer spending slowdown is basically inevitable so long as the employment climate remains as stagnant as it is,
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This is not the time for runaway enthusiasm. The first half was very good for retailers but consumers are going to be very wary in the second-half, ... if we're lucky.
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Demand is great simply because home sales have been going through the roof, and every time a home is occupied for the first time, usually tens of thousands of dollars are spent on furnishing it and refurbishing it,
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Lampert signaled a long time ago that he wanted a major role for himself in the actual running of the company. That's apparently what he's doing now.
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Retailers know that for a lot of consumers, this is a time of uncertainty about their jobs, ... This will make them frugal with their holiday shopping and they will be on the hunt for the best deals out there.
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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.