Page 10 - The Peorian Vol 3 Issue 1 Winter

10 thePeorian.com
WHO WILL BUY…?
Predicting holiday sales tough
in a topsy-turvy economy
By Paul Gordon
The Present
E conomic news has been
on such a ride the last half
of the year, it’s tough to
imagine how prognosticators can
make predictions about holiday
sales.
And yet the National Retail
Federation is predicting consum-
er spending during the holidays
will increase nearly 4 percent this
year over 2012.
How reliable can that be?
Consumer confidence dropped
precipitously in October, accord-
ing to some national surveys,
and declined at least a little
everywhere, including in central
Illinois. One factor undoubtedly
was the mess in Washington,
D.C., as Congress allowed the
government to shut down for
many days before resolving the
budget.
Not only did that creep into the
psyche of consumers, so did the
prospect that, as a result, inter-
est rates would likely increase
for long-term and credit card
borrowing. That, experts said,
caused a lot of Americans to close
the savings passbook and put the
plastic away just as they would
normally start thinking about
holiday shopping excursions.
Then the crisis was averted.
Unemployment numbers im-
proved. The stock markets shot to
record highs on a frequent basis.
Then the Fed decided to keep
interest rates at the current low
level for at least a while longer.
All that, of course, occurred
after those consumer confidence
surveys were taken and the re-
sults disseminated.
So what actually happens
during the busiest shopping
season of any year — Thanksgiv-
ing through Christmas — will
be anybody’s guess, unless the
experts go back and revisit their
previous statistical resources.
That is a possibility, said Kathy
Grannis, senior director of media
relations for the National Retail