What's Hot Now?

A recent Yahoo! News headline read, "Hot in recession: Cheaper wine, chocolate, Spam". Needless to say, this caught my attention! Even though we are in an "economic downturn" -- our new phrase for depression or recession (we certainly would want to scare anyone with those words) this article revealed which products are currently experiencing a growth in sales.

Included in the list --I've added my comments:

• Chocolate --we must have something to make us happy
• Cheaper Wine --makes us happy and saves money
• Running Shoes --guess we can't pay the gym membership anymore
• Gold Coins --maybe we're loosing our faith in the US dollar
• Spam, Dinty Moore stew, Hormel chili --so much for dining out
• Seeds --better learn how to grow our own food just in case we can't afford Spam
• Stomach remedies --this makes perfect sense, our stomachs are upset over the
economy, or maybe it's the canned meat products
• Fishing Equipment --fish is better than Spam, plus it is something to do with our
time since we don't have extra money to spend
• Lipstick --well if you can't get a new outfit, perhaps new lipstick
• Guns --are we that scared?

The good news here is as the article states, "It is not all doom and gloom in the US economy." We are still spending money, just in smaller sums and for things that bring us a little happiness and a sense of security!

What is "Normal" now for your business?

With many businesses feeling the effects of the economic downturn, a new "normal" is evolving, what's yours?