ComparisonEngines

Pundits/Analysts are starting to make halloween and holiday predictions:
-NPD’s Holiday Retail Outlook – consumers plan to spend about the same. “What this means is consumers will be looking to find what to buy, when to buy, and where to buy before even leaving the house,” said Cohen. “This eliminates the rushed decisions and can potentially eliminate some impulse purchasing from the holiday shopping equation.”
-Retailers Go With Discounts for Halloween. NYTimes article points out that everything is about price.
-Holiday sales will rise 2.3% this year. The NRF is predicting 2.3% growth. “While that growth remains slightly lower than the ten-year average holiday sales increase of 2.5 percent, it would be a marked improvement from both last year’s 0.4 percent uptick and the dismal 3.9 percent holiday sales decline retailers experienced in 2008.”
-Online holiday sales to increase 15%, National Retail Federation says. The stat in the Internet Retailer article comes from a conference call with Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist with the National Retail Federation. I was not on the conference call. I’m just repeating what IR says.
-My take is that merchants are going to be playing a game of chicken with consumers. Merchants are going to have to discount to get the masses in the door, but with better inventory control, merchants are not going to be forced to drop drop drop prices to the 90% off level immediately. However, if we see consumers wait wait wait, then merchants might be forced to drop prices accordingly.
-Dim outlook for holiday jobs. From the NYTimes article: :The recruiting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, forecasts that retailers will add up to 600,000 jobs in October, November and December, compared with a net gain of 501,400 holiday jobs over the same three months in 2009.”