This week, both Target and Walmart released their quarterly financial results. Based on the results and executives’ comments on those reults, it’s almost like they’re from two different quarters or years entirely, or at least not from two discount stores that are generally close competitors. Maybe it’s not that shoppers are clutching their wallets or spending on home renovations instead of everyday home goods, a Target speculated. Maybe Target’s shoppers are just heading to Walmart more often. [More]
consumer sentiment
Study Says We're Done Being Stingy & It's Time For A Crazy Nationwide Spending Spree
By 9.5.12
Have your fingers unfurled from their tight grasp on those pennies you’ve been pinching? A new report seems to indicate as much, finding that we’re all plain sick of being stingy after years of recession scrimping and dollar-watching behavior. The research says we’re done avoiding restaurants, driving around used clunkers and staying put where we live. [More]
Survey: U.S. Consumers Are Feeling Pretty Darn Optimistic Right About Now
By 1.13.12
We’re all a bunch of optimistic Spendy McSpendersons lately, according to a new survey that says consumer sentiment is remaining high in the new year. As more jobs are being created, consumers have lifted their collective spirits for the fifth consecutive month. [More]
Consumer Sentiment Index Hits 20-Month Low
By 8.9.11
Our corporate cousins at Consumer Reports have released their monthly index of overall consumer sentiment, and it looks like all the worrying about the debt ceiling has caused the sharpest month-to-month drop in the index in two years and the lowest result since December 2009. [More]
America: Eyes Wide Open, Wallet Half Shut
By 5.13.10
Like a tempered blade, America has passed through the fires of recession and emerged stronger and sharper, albeit with some pieces of itself permanently oxidized. What is on our minds? How do we feel and how are we acting in the new economy? Researchers at Communispace surveyed more than 1,200 U.S. consumers, spoke with 694 online community members, and came up with some very interesting results and insights. Here they are, in chunky infographic form: [More]
What Cheer? Consumers More Glum Than Ever
By 11.13.09
Retailers have been hoping that we’d enter the annual Festival of Shopping with higher spirits than last year, but it looks like that might not happen after all. The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index was updated today, and it shows a drop to 66.0, “well below October’s reading of 70.6 and a sharp reversal of the 71.0 figure economists had expected.”
