Tis The Season- A Look At  The 2007 Holiday
Shopping Season
Author: Robert Benson

With gas prices soaring, the value of the dollar falling and
the stock market concerns of consumers, as well as the ongoing
credit crunch in the U.S., what impact will these and other
factors have on the 2007 holiday shopping season?

According to the Commerce Department, retail sales last month
(October 2007) posted the weakest showing since last August,
with just a minuscule 0.2% increase, as consumers continue to
struggle with the slumping housing market and tighter credit
conditions.

According to a forecast by the National Retail Federation in
September of 2007, they predicted that sales for the 2007
holiday season will rise to 474.5 billion dollars, which would
represent a 4% increase over the previous year.  But this
holiday sales increase falls below the ten-year average of 4.8%
and would represent the slowest holiday sales growth rate since
2002, when sales rose 1.3%

Additionally, eMarketer a trusted market research firm, expects
that online holiday sales should exceed 30 billion dollars
(excluding online travel), which would represent an 18.5%
increase over 2006 figures.  But this would be a drop from last
season's growth rate of 25%.  However, these estimates surely
beat the low single digit growth rate that was forecast.  This
drop-off is the lowest growth rate in the past four years with
2003 e-commerce holiday season sales representing a 25.7% growth
rate over the previous year.  In 2004, the growth rate was 25.4%
over 2003 and 2005 came in at a 21.5% rate over 2004 (with
e-commerce holiday season sales at 21 billion) while sales for
2006 were at 26.2 billion and represented a 24.8% increase from
2005.

Moreover, emarketer reports that online sales in 2007 will be
driven by the increased spending habits of existing online
purchasers who have confidence in the e-commerce system and that
they will shop at unfamiliar web sites to find what they are
looking for.  It is also reported that these "seasoned" shoppers
will shop later in the season and that they have faith that the
e-tailers will meet their delivery demands.

Furthermore, Ian Shepherdson, who is the chief U.S. analyst at
High Frequency Economics, reports that the core retail sales
have risen over the past three months, but at the slowest
annualized rate in five years and predicts that this weakness
will only intensify.

"We expect a further deterioration as consumers cut back in
the face of soaring gas prices, falling stock prices and the
continued disaster in housing," Shepherdson explained.  "The
holiday season will be terrible."

In fact, a survey by Deloitte & Touche reports that Milwaukee,
Wisconsin shoppers plan to spend less than they did last year
and that those who were polled have a dimmer outlook on the
economy than they did at the same time last year.  (The poll was
conducted online from September 24 through October 4, 2007, with
a total of 14,135 people responding to the survey across the
U.S., which included 306 in the Milwaukee metro area)
Furthermore, only 6% of those polled said they plan to spend
more this holiday season, 51% reported that they plan to spend
about the same amount as last season and a woeful 42% are
planning to spend less this year.

Additionally, according to the same poll, some of the reasons
for spending less this holiday season are higher energy costs
(59%), higher food prices (53%), higher debt levels (34%),
concerns about the economy (33%), their perception that the
holidays are just too commercial and expensive (29%), job
loss/pay reduction (20%), concerns about their employment (15%),
higher mortgage payments and interest rates (15%), credit
problems (7%), declining value of their home (7%), the
aforementioned volatility of the U.S. stock market (6%),
bankruptcy/foreclosure at 2%, while "other" factors came in at
20%.  Another survey, this one from the American Research Group
in Charleston, S.C. reports that 58% of consumers will be more
price-conscious this holiday season.

So what do all these elements tell us about the 2007 holiday
shopping season?  From all indications, there is a bleak outlook
for the 2007 holiday shopping season as consumers continue to
struggle with out of control gas prices, inflation, higher food
and energy costs, stock market uncertainty, higher debt levels,
the housing problems, and the credit and lending standards being
imposed by financial institutions in the wake of a serious
credit crunch.  Online retailers will have to endure the tighter
wallets from their customers with the online sales growth being
the lowest in five years.


About The Author: Robert Benson operates a unique shopping site
http://www.ezshoppinghere.com where a consumer can do all their
holiday shopping at one spot.  Robert also writes about vinyl
record collecting at http://www.collectingvinylrecords.com and
an ebook called The Fascinating Hobby Of Vinyl Record Collecting