Have you been to a restaurant or mall lately? If you have you know that it is hard to find a parking space. Twice recently, my wife and I have gone to upscale local restaurants and have had to stand in line to get a table.
Just this past weekend the new movie release of Angels and Demons grossed over $48,000,000 in ticket sales and Star Trek followed closely behind with $43,000,000. All total the top ten movies across the US grossed over $128,000,000 dollars in ticket sales in just three days. That doesn’t include money spent at restaurants and bars before and after the movies or the money spent on high-priced concessions. When you consider that all of these expenditures are discretionary spending the so-called recession takes on a whole different meaning.
While it is true that certain industries like automotive, retail, and housing are in the toilet other segments of the economy, like the entertainment industry, money is flowing freely.
While consumers are not spending as freely as they were a year ago, it is important to realize that they are still spending huge sums of money. In fact, by some accounts, spending is only off 5% – 7% year over year. That means consumers are still spending 93% – 95% of what they spent a year ago. They may be more discriminating and cautious, but they are still spending trillions of dollars on everything they were spending money on a year ago.
If you want to get your share of the money being spent you should do your homework and determine who is spending the money and what are they spending it on. Once you do this you can tailor your product or service offering to that niche and provide them with what they want. That may mean selling to a different group of people than you are accustomed to selling to or selling in a different way than you are used to or even selling a different product offering than you have sold before. Yes, you will have to change because buyers’ habits have changed.
They have not stopped buying they are just buying differently.