Fad or Trend? Will recessionary shopping behavior continue?

Just how much financial trauma is required to permanently affect how consumers shop? Will the shopping behavior the retail industry has witnessed during the recession continue after the "new normal" settles in? These were among the questions that both retailers and brand marketers contemplated when responding to the recently fielded Fad or Trend? survey, conducted by RetailWire and Dechert-Hampe with underwriting from design firm Miller Zell.

There's no doubt that the downturn, which began back in 2007, has made a change in a variety of areas in the lives of Americans. As the latest Retail:Next study from Dechert-Hampe and RetailWire - Fad or Trend?: Will Recessionary Shopping Behavior Continue? -  points out, retailing professionals believe consumers have made a number of shorter-term adjustments in their daily lives. These include eating out less (73.6 percent), buying fewer new clothes (73.1 percent), vacationing closer to home (72.2 percent), purchasing American-made goods, (70.2 percent) and buying fewer luxury goods (56.6 percent).

"The American consumer in particular is not good at doing with less of anything," said Ray Jones, Dechert-Hampe's managing director, in a RetailWire webinar last week. "We're not very good at being frugal, like the Greatest Generation."

Read this special Executive Summary, authored by Ray Jones and Ben Ball of Dechert-Hampe & Co., for fascinating details.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE STUDY...