One thing that has happened in our consumer economy is that shoppers have gotten use to significant discounts from full price on just about everything. Now, more and more, shoppers, even those that have not suffered a loss in income, are demanding lower prices or greater discounts. Of course this is driven by a simple fact, they can get them and the retailer's need the buyer's much more than the other way around.
With the drop in demand across the board the consumer now has an expectation that everything should be on sale. If the consumer does not think the item is offering sufficient value, they will not buy it until it does. Now discounting in retail is nothing new and if retail has prepared for a slightly slower season, as it should have, we may actually start to see popular items become unavailable.
It is going to take such shortages to make people buy at full retail or even pay a premium. As we get through Halloween and move into the Christmas season, I believe two factors are going to prevent those shortages from materializing. In the first case, stores are most likely overstocking. Forecasting is clearly difficult but this is going to be a better season than last year but not dramatically so. So I expect stock to be widely available. The other factor is simply that the ability to sell on-line makes many items available that would otherwise have not been. Central storage and distribution for on-line retail eliminates a lot of the uneven store inventory that is so difficult for retail.
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