If you look at sales of luxury goods like automaker
Ferrari’s products (starting price around $200,000) you
see that the US and Canada account for nearly 30% of their
global market. This indicates to me that the recession is
truly over for the wealthy and ECPs that cater to that crowd
are probably doing very well! Similarly, things like
high-end watches, handbags, jewelry, etc. However, the lines
at the Gulf station next door to our place of business when
they take six cents off a gallon on Mondays and Wednesdays
suggests not everyone is in that rarified market.
Average people (as in customers, clients, patients,
whatever you wish to call them) are crazy for money saving
deals. The big news this week is a tax-free weekend in Taxa…uh,
Massachusetts, people who would have traveled to our
neighbor New Hampshire for their stonking-big flat screen TV
or new living room set are sticking around this weekend for
the promotion. All the local stores are advertising this
heavily and are expecting a huge influx of business. This
begs the question – why have a sales tax at all if it only
benefits neighboring states to the degree we need to declare
tax-free weekends?
In 2005 Citigroup reported that, “America was composed
of two distinct groups: the rich and the rest. And for the
purposes of investment decisions, the second group didn’t
matter; tracking its spending habits or worrying over its
savings rate was a waste of time. All the action in the
American economy was at the top: the richest 1 percent of
households earned as much each year as the bottom 60 percent
put together, they possessed as much wealth as the bottom 90
percent.” And the gap grows each passing year.
According to Gallup from May 2009 to May 2011, daily
consumer spending rose by 16% among Americans earning more
than $90,000 per year; among all other Americans, spending
was completely flat!
So what does this mean to folks like you and me with
customers from all economic strata? It means we hope our
customers stay employed, it means we hope they keep their
vision care insurance, it means we find ways to compete with
big box opticals, and internet eyeglasses. It means,
ultimately we have to rely on our strength to change quickly
and adapt to new conditions like the media claims we small
businesses can do.
Above all – we need to send the message to our elected
officials (of both parties) that they need to stop the BS,
ignore the buffoons on the extreme edges of their respective
parties and get to work on JOBS (which will get the economy
back on track quicker than cutting social programs)!
How important is this? Our older relatives have told us
stories about the Great Depression of the thirties; we’d
better hope we don’t get in the position where we will be
telling our grandchildren stories from the Great Depression
of the new millennium.
