Liquor sales rose by 4% last year, and growth was particularly strong in terms of exports of American spirits and sales in the pricey "super premium" category of vodka, indicating that consumers feel good enough about the economy to splurge on upscale beverages.
The death of a loved one is traumatic enough. The scenario of late typically involves difficult decisions and costly medical expenses—followed by a potentially costly ceremony and burial. Increasingly, though, families are cutting expenses by choosing cremation, which costs less than half of the price of a traditional burial.
Experts say people are turning away from pricey cocaine during these tough times, and are instead choosing cheaper narcotics to get their fix.
Consumer activity gives a good indication of how the economy is holding up, and here are five trends indicating that consumers are having a particularly hard time lately.
The tough economy is giving owners extra reason to watch their pooch’s back. There has been a rise in dogs being stolen or kidnapped.
A pet burial, complete with a casket, ceremony, and cemetery plot, runs around $800. Cremating a pet, on the other hand, costs about $80. Guess which option is increasingly being chosen by pet owners?
How’s this for an unorthodox economic indicator: Stores selling secondhand merchandise on the cheap are absolutely booming.
Among other surprising factoids, 44% of Americans say they'll never put money in the stock market again.
The national average appearing under the pillows of recently de-toothed children is now $2.52 a pop. That’s up 18% from the average of a year ago ($2.13). And the increase, according the group that conducts this annual poll, is a strong indication that the economy is improving. Either that or the black market for kids’ [...]
For quite some time, there was no shortage of indicators pointing to the fact that the economy wasn’t doing so hot—including some odd data about a falloff in men’s underwear sales, a rise in animals being abandoned at pet shelters, and the impressively overqualified status of this year’s census workers. Now, at long last, we’ve [...]
Among the data that may give some indication of how the economy is doing: Sales of generic toilet paper and cheap liquor, how new your underwear is, and how hot your waitress is, and how busy the fast-food drive-thru is at breakfast time. Also: passenger subway traffic near San Francisco’s Union Square, and perhaps even [...]
