Recession Rejection

Shoppers are on a quest for control. And when they set their sights on smaller, more personal spheres, they’re optimistic about their prospects.

background

What, you thought American consumers were just going to sit back and quietly accept this long recession? There’s a common thread running through both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, as well as the woman shopping dollar stores for her staples (while splurging on pricey nail polish) and the voracious deal hunter who compares prices on every item from $5 to $500 (Roper finds 56% of shoppers doing the former). All of these phenomena are really stories about the quest for control over the crazy world around them. Now, they’re flipping the bird at incessant talk about downturns and double-dips, focusing instead on smarter ways to actively improve their lives. And with retailers and brands bending over backward to capture new customers, shoppers are suddenly seeing the lingering recession as an opportunity, and realizing that this might actually be a great time to be a shopper. Who would’ve thought?

market manifestations

• Buyer’s Market: With retailers desperately trying to stimulate sales, shoppers are finding themselves the subject of some aggressive courting. Shoppers can take advantage of reinstated conveniences like layaway, while patronizing stores that ground themselves in exceptional customer service, such as Abt and hhgregg. Moreover, with luxury marketers seeking to expand their customer bases, we’ve seen a democratization of finer things, encompassing everything from Gilt Groupe’s upscale deal-a-day discounts to the absolute chaos that Target incited with its Missoni line.
• Control the Crisis: Last year’s Future Fear trend described a pervasive state of mind, but consumers have turned that sentiment into action. And every one of those actions is about regaining control any way they can. When it comes to their finances, consumers are adopting a broad swath of behaviors, covering everything from sharing products within their households to eating smaller portions to concentrating their shopping trips at the beginning of the month (when more cash is available). The particular tactics aren’t as important as the total breadth of these strategies, which is indicative of the perpetual deal hunting behavior of the aforementioned Xtreme Shoppers.

implications

Let’s not forget that, no matter how ugly things get, Americans have a habit of saying, “We’ll tell you when it’s over!” Future Fear is still a very real long-term phenomenon, but its persistence has bred an equally strong fear fatigue in the short run. Even in the midst of widespread frustration and outrage, Roper finds that a startling 91% of consumers believe that they still
control their own happiness, a jump of 18 whopping points from a decade ago. How can this be? Consumers may have lost faith in Big Everything, but many remain fiercely optimistic about the smaller spheres in their lives over which they can assert control. (Interestingly, this increasingly applies to billionaires and the jobless alike.) Marketing to those folks with messages of reassurance may fall flat compared to efforts that celebrate their scrappiness and fiery persistence. Marketers focusing on every minor movement in sales figures or trying to interpret the implications of the  Nail Polish Index might be better served by examining their consumers for signs of this defiant esteem.