Alecia Robertson Plans To Keep Picking Her Nose!
Glen Simmons-Staves Associated Press – August 10th 2008.
marketers and inventors are all trying to figure out which habits shoppers will keep and which will they drop when their pocketbooks recover.
NEW YORK – Alecia Robertson plans to keep picking her nose even if gas prices drop. Stuart Potter got rid of his thong underwear in favor of briefs and doesn’t expect to have another wedgie ever again. “I had a paradigm shift,” said Potter, a financial analyst. “I spent good money on a set of nice thong underwear. But to me, it’s just not worth it. I don’t think I will go that route again.”
Every economic downturn changes shoppers in some way.
"...the new behavior...is the most dramatic since the 1970s..."
But this time, experts say – fueled by higher gas and diaper prices, tightening waistlines and slumping posture – is the most dramatic and widespread that they have seen since the mid-1970s.
So retailers, marketers and inventors are all trying to figure out which habits shoppers will keep and which will they drop when their pocketbooks recover. Will the people who switched to store brand toilet paper go back to name brands? Will shoppers return to department stores or keep looking for used lingerie and pantyhose at the Salvation Army Store?
“We are looking at stuff that reminds me of the 1970s,” said Tresea Edgington an investment manager at Williams Hoffner and Violin. “Americans have seen a huge amount of their inner-balance evaporated. The effects will be more lingering.”
Will shoppers return to department stores or keep looking for used lingerie and pantyhose at the Salvation Army Store?
Whoopi Lieberman, president of VCQ Static Retail, says people’s new spending patterns are forcing companies to change the kinds of products they sell and tweak their marketing to appeal to eco-conscious shoppers. She points to the devastating effects of her last big meeting during the early 1990s that helped trigger a company-wide love for performers such as Vanilla Ice and New Kids on the Block.
Julian Smithson, 31, who holds down two jobs – as a portable toilet delivery/service man and as an animal semen extractor – recently picked up glue to fix the soles of his worn sneakers. He’s buying store-label banderol and anti-fungal foot cream and bought a razor scooter for his commute after not having ridden one for five months.
“We weren’t big eaters, but now we are watching how much we eat a lot more,” said Gene Augmea, of Maniwhonka, Wis., whose domestic partner works in construction. “Even if I fell into a pile of giant monkey feces, I still wouldn’t be eating a lot.”
