Envirnomental Analysis - Essay Example

First, the slow growth of houses brought a significant downturn on retail sales in terms of appliances, furniture and home furnishings. Consumer spending is also affected by stricter lending policies now being pursued by lending institutions due to default in mortgages and payments. Other economic factor affecting the industry is the high cost of gasoline which slices the consumers’ budget for household expenses and retail spending. Most likely , the following factors will pose a negative effect on the trend of industry sales and will be the trend for 20009, Punkett Research said.. The impact of high consumer debt levels will constrain spending.

* The growing trend of expenditures can be influenced by lifestyles as shown in Plunkett Research. Consumers trend in spending supports healthy lifestyle with products that has more high value, long life, environment friendly, and low in consumption. The fast pace of technology has moved retail selling into new direction in selling. For instance, we are seeing now the rapid growth of on line shopping. Internet connections make shopping convenient for consumers. Report said that in 2008, internet business of retail selling have kept about 100 million consumers in their homes and business.

Sales raked by Amazon in 2007 was $14.8 billion higher than in 2006 of $107 billion in 2006. A Shop.org. survey mentioned in Plunkets research t said that in 2008, on line shopping of 84.6 million consumers accounted for $ 72.0 million sales in 2006 and $ 60.7 million in 2007. Not to be outdone, Wal=Mart has joined the bandwagon in the e-commerce trading. In 1985, at the tune of $4 billion, company developed software that will give information on consumer behavior through the bar codes system.

This information enabled the company to foresee demographic changes. Today, demographic changes may be seen thru the behavior of buying patterns of