Britt Beemer Quotes on Christianity (12 Quotes)

One thing that shocked me was that the number of consumers planning to buy gift cards this Christmas is not as big as last year.

Overall, the moderate-priced stores such as J.C. Penney, Sears and Wal-Mart had good traffic levels. We think luxury sales were probably flat this past weekend because more people said they decided to go away on vacation before Christmas this year than last year. So this could have impacted spending on other high-end items.

More Americans are waiting to the end to shop for Christmas than any other time in the last 10 years. The consumer was never excited about anything that they saw this Christmas.

The closer you get to Christmas, there's this mentality on the part of consumers where they're willing to go out just a little bit more to get the even bigger discounts.

There are a lot of wealthy income consumers that have given a lot of money to hurricane funds, and they're saying they're doing that in lieu of Christmas gifts,

With nothing hot to buy in decorations this Christmas, many stores started selling two weeks earlier than ever before, beginning in mid-September. Many stores skipped Thanksgiving altogether and went from Halloween to Christmas.

Consumers love January because January has always been this great clearance month. If they don't see (sales), as they've proved this Christmas, they'll outwait the retailer.

I think retailers will hold prices up to 40 percent off before Christmas and then go even deeper in January to clear inventory. No doubt, heavy discounts help sales but they hurt profits. And retailers, more than ever, know that they have to answer to Wall Street and not Main Street.

Retailers had a sales plan for Christmas, stayed with it and then benefited from a very strong January without giving up margins.

I think the big story of Christmas will be this shift in consumer attitudes where people felt that stores gouged them with their pricing strategy. The 30 to 40 percent discounts this year instead of the 50 to 70 percent off last year will help profits but will hurt customer loyalty in the long term.

I don't think the day is the kind of day that retailers thought it would be. Christmas Eve is seldom the big day because of the fact that so many consumers ... want to be home.

Consumers believe that the bigger, better deals happen closer to Christmas, and they're willing to wait. Last year, lots of consumers were disappointed because they didn't see the early discounts. Shoppers are playing a game of cat and mouse, and they're waiting to see if the retailers will outlast them.