An article in the Economist points out a worldwide trend of consumer confidence dropping. In Germany consumer confidence has dropped for its third straight month. In America, confidence is down in October almost 15%. Retailers are worried about this trend, especially as the Christmas spending orgy, er, "buying season" nears.
The thing I find most useful in the article is that from the perspective of the consumer the growing retail establishment and their catering to the specific tastes of the consumer (mostly because the market is growing more competitive) is a real boon for consumer advocacy. The article talks about Target comissioning their own fashion designers and other stores around the world are looking at local fashion providers instead of Chinese imports, because they are more timely and in tune with finicky "consumer trends." Wal-mart is looking into carrying organic foods to compete with some specialty chains. Wal-mart is also exploring the idea of having consumers send their digital photos to them over the internet, to be produced and picked up within the hour at their local store. Brilliant!
Each of these efforts will most likely decrease the overall costs of these traditional "specialty" goods and bring their prices down to earth. And with lower prices comes greater economic value for our hard-earned dollars.
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