Amid the crushing weight of unrelenting Doom and Gloom news, there was a ray of hope in this morning’s Wall Street Journal.
Retail Sales Show Signs of Life, read the headline.
February saw the first gain in retail sales since September. But not at every store. Consumers were shopping discounters, and Wal-Mart was the big winner, growing same-store sales 5.1 percent.
What were buyers buying? According to the WSJ report, they focused on the kitchen — groceries, counter-top appliances, cookware — while going out to restaurants a lot less.
This trend is in line with what I’ve heard from several marketing and retailing professors at Harvard Business School. Nancy Koehn says that in times of turmoil, we consumers tend to favor things that make us feel more secure and stable. And what says stable more than a home-cooked family meal?
Agrees marketing professor John Quelch, who offered this advice to marketers in his How to Market in a Recession post on Harvard Business Publishing:
“When economic hard times loom, we tend to retreat to our village. Look for cozy hearth-and-home family scenes in advertising to replace images of extreme sports, adventure and rugged individualism. Zany humor and appeals on the basis of fear are out. Greeting card sales, telephone use and discretionary spending on home furnishings and home entertainment will hold up well, as uncertainty prompts us to stay at home but also stay connected with family and friends.”
By the way, none of the experts quoted in the WSJ piece argued the February retail uptick was a bounce off the bottom of the recession. But at least, said one retail analyst in what goes for irrational exuberance in today’s world, “we are starting to see less negative trends.”
What are you spending your money on these days? Me? We’re going shopping for a new cutting board this weekend. Seriously.
