Consumers Return to Small Luxuries

Consumers Return to Small Luxuries

Consumers are starting to return to pre-recession levels of discretionary spending on small personal luxuries, according to a new survey from Stores Magazine and BIGResearch. Data from the survey indicates that dinner at a casual sit-down restaurant, a haircut/coloring, and a daily cup of gourmet coffee were all considered “untouchable” by similar percentages of consumers in December 2010 as they were in December 2008.

Discretionary Spend Rebounds from ’09 Slump

The percentage of consumers considering all three of these discretionary spending items dropped from December 2008 to December 2009 before recovering in December 2010. Most notably, the percentage considering a daily cup of gourmet coffee untouchable declined about 13.5% year-over-year.

The percentage considering a haircut/color untouchable has actually climbed about 5% from 2008 (from 40% to 42.1%), while dinner and gourmet coffee remain at percentages well above 2009 but still slightly less than 2008. Although most economists pinpoint the start of the recession as December 2007, 2009 represented what has been the lowest point of it so far, with moderate recovery occurring in 2010.

http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/consumers-return-to-small-luxuries-16559/stores-luxury-mar-20111jpg/

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