It’s not surprising that in a time of recovery from the worst financial crisis in half a century people are changing their spending habits. Business that cater to more luxury items and services are seeing people turn away from them and instead choosing more piratical things to spend their money on and that trend isn’t expected to change anytime soon. Even with the return of jobs.
“We seem to be at a cultural inflection point that we haven’t seen since World War II,” said Jim Taylor, vice chairman of market researcher the Harrison Group.”People are getting used to being careful, and I don’t know how you undo that,”
Some luxury companies are looking to September 11th as an indicator of the spending climate. Hoping that once the economy turns that the consumer will follow and so will their money. However others still doubt that this will happen. Even though there is hope for the economy many people are still worrying about job loss yet to come.
According to the Commerce Department more people are starting to save than before the crisis. The consumer is starting to shop for more products for more social, political, or environmental reasons. Even those who haven’t been impacted by the down turn are cubing their spending and not looking to flash their wealth.
What does this mean for many companies? They need to become conscious of what their customer wants. That could mean looking for products to become more green, even reducing the size of the logo and giving more bang for the buck. It’s time to reposition brands
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