We recently did another post on the big – or more likely the not-so-big 2013 holiday shopping season – but another indicator was released this week which could impact sales.
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell from 72.4 last month to 70.4 – nearly ten points below its September reading of 80.2.
That’s it’s lowest reading in seven months – and its biggest expectations miss in eight months.
“With such uncertainty prevailing, this could be a challenging holiday season for retailers,” said Lynn Franco, the organization’s director of economic indicators.
Consumer confidence is critical because it drives retail spending – which is responsible for roughly seventy percent of the American economy. Retail spending in turn drives production, which in turn drives job growth, etc.
A dip in consumer confidence is especially troublesome at the outset of the peak holiday shopping season – when many retailers do as much as 40 percent of their business.
1 comment
The “uncertainty” is about whether or not the GOPers including those working on the budget, Ryan, Cruz, Cantor and that ilk, will try to tank the economy once again like they did with the 2011 debt ceiling debacle and Grand Bargain and like they did in October…trying to tank it like they have done every day since 1-20-09.
As we learned after the recent shutdown when the numbers on the ‘direction the country is going’ tanked, those numbers reflect what the biggest do-nothing Republican House is not doing and what the Senate GOP obstructionists obstruct as much, if not more, than what a president is able to do.
I bet the GOP will try to tank the economy.