Kurt Barnard Quotes (160 Quotes)

There are two conflicting forces at work on the consumer. One is people have jobs, they have money, the unemployment rate is still at a 30-year low of 3.9 percent, a lot of economic circumstances are very, very favorable. A lot of economic circumstances are very, very favorable, people have money and jobs, but they don't have as high a discretionary spending level as they did a year ago.

All apparel-based retailers got creamed. They lost much of their market share to discounters,

We have had a series of rate increases since last year, and so far we have not felt any impact on retailing off all of these increases. However, eventually something will have to give. I would predict that, say towards the end of the year, the fourth quarter, the very all-important holiday fourth quarter, we are going to see that the rate increases will finally take a bite. And that could be a comfort to retailing.

We are now combining ... American history with modern technology and modern contemporary lifestyles.

The demand for the 'luxury look' is back. Americans want to be fashionable and elegantly dressed but that doesn't mean they want to go broke in the process, ... Consumers know that they can get that well-dressed look for an affordable price, and that's why the specialty apparel chains like Gap ( GPS Research , Estimates ) and Ann Taylor ( ANN Research , Estimates ) are performing well.

There is spotty evidence that in some stores inventories are running low, but considering that the action that's in the stores is not particularly hot these days, that (low inventories) may not be the worst possible fate. In many cases a lot of stores reduced the orders they placed, and in some cases, canceled orders, which is exactly what's happening.

It's a good industry. It's growing, and it has been growing for a long, long time, but I think the May company is particularly interested in getting access to the bridal business,

However, retailers shouldn't break out the champagne yet, ... The rebates will have a very modest effect on spending. With a 6.4 percent unemployment rate, there are millions of people in the country with no income except for unemployment and welfare benefits. Millions more are on long-term unemployment, those that simply have stopped looking for work.

They are streamlining operations, trying to make it more profitable, productive, ... The real question to my mind is how can they be a full line store without cosmetics

People are not going to go on buying binges. People are deep in debt and deep in hock,

It wasn't surprising really. The August same-store numbers really confirm the trend of slowing retail sales and consumer spending, ... August was the back-to-school that wasn't. August and back-to-school doesn't quite have the importance it did a decade ago, but outside of that make no mistake, consumer spending has slowed down and Americans are tapped out.

Demand is great simply because home sales have been going through the roof, and every time a home is occupied for the first time, usually tens of thousands of dollars are spent on furnishing it and refurbishing it,

Rebates are wonderful to the extent that they are executed, regardless of the deficit,

It's going to be a very, very strong day. No question about it. But the weather has me a little worried. The temperature has been way above normal and who wants to buy a heavy sweater when the temperature is 65 degrees

They are all planning very cautiously, very carefully. Some companies have very decent inventory controls, but however good those controls are they still have to do some economic forecasting, and forecasting is a little difficult this time around. Nobody is going to spring for big orders until there's evidence that consumer demand is back, and there is no such evidence to date.

With this kind of weather, we've now had this for some days, I think you'll find retail sales will reflect a cautious attitude on the part of consumers,

The anecdotal evidence would indicate that traffic was not excessively busy, ... And what consumers were looking for was the sales sign. They looked at the price tag before they looked at the product.

Whatever strengths fashion apparel did show came from deep markdowns.

It's an extremely popular hobby.

It was disappointing. A lot of stores told us that when they opened at 7 or 8 in the morning with special deals good for two hours, crowds were beginning to mass. But at the stroke of 9, when those sales were supposed to end, the crowds disappeared like a snowflake in the palm of your hand.

I think that they reached the point where something had to happen to Burlington Coat. (CEO) Monroe Milstein was not active for quite sometime, and I think it was mostly his sons running the company. I think his sons were running out of ideas. They weren't expanding and they felt it would be too much of an effort to make the company shape up and be competitive.

Oil, jobs, housing prices, unfunded pensions and geopolitical events that could go any number of ways will have an effect in 2006. At this point it's foolhardy to forecast. Any one of those things could send shivers up the spine of consumers.

If you stash money away in a savings account, then there's less available to buy things in a store, from candy to cars, ... This is not quite the conventional retrenchment we've known from past recessions, but it may represent a kind of wishy-washy stagnation.

All I can tell you is that we've had some information that April retail sales were somewhat disappointing for some chains,

Halloween has become in recent times a little more of a retail-type holiday than you've seen it in decades past. It's becoming a little more important not just for sales of scary masks, but there generally is more traffic into the stores. It's sort of the beginning of fall, something like the precursor for what's to come.

I think ultimately they will do better than they have done in some years, ... There's no question the much more attractive stores will pay off in terms of improvement, but will they be able to come through with big earnings The jury's still out.

Remember, there are still over 2 million unemployed workers and over 5 million are on part-time jobs. Christmas will be moderately better simply because last year was so bad. But unless this jobs picture improves, it's hard to say that the retail industry has finally turned the corner.

This is actually a little worse than I expected, and particularly bad when viewed within the context of a year ago, which was already very weak.

We think consumer spending will go back to the kind of level we expected for the fourth quarter before the attacks happened, and that level was not one of great strength. We were thinking that it might be 2 to 3 percent above last year on a same-store basis, and last year was pretty bad. We would be coming off a weak base.

It's not a core business, but (gardening) is a very profitable part of the business.

What the Gap is doing is not only what it must be doing, but what it should have done a long time ago.

Just remember one thing - the competitive world around Home Depot is changing. Lifestyles are changing. He has stay not just on top of those changes, but a mile ahead of them.

There's a general sense of weakness and caution and I'll tell you, the headlines in the newspapers these days do not help. We're seeing more layoffs and consumers are beginning to feel there's a cold winter breeze suddenly blowing their way.

Their sales are terrible and their efforts to come up with newness that appeals to consumers and brings them back into the stores are failing. There's absolutely no indication that they have found a road back to health, and while they have very little debt, they do have too many stores. With that kind of a background, it's not difficult to envision a bankruptcy in the foreseeable future.

Consumers still aren't in a spending mood, ... This year is going to be modestly better. The emphasis is on the word 'modest.'

The May contribution is going to be very substantial because of the in-house brands, displays, and ambience of the stores.

Everybody is worried about a soft landing for the economy and a contraction of consumer spending. And come Christmas it will be far less exciting than a year ago. The high cost at the gas pump is beginning to take its toll and for a lot of families spending an extra 20-to-25 a month on gasoline means spending that much less on stores.

They (retailers) don't know. All they can do is hope and guess more than anything else. It's a brutal, brutal problem,

She may be right on the button. But for me to believe she'll be right, she'd have to tell me that she knows what will happen with Iran, jobs, the price of home heating oil and interest rates.

The bulk of the refund checks will go toward paying off the enormous credit card debt which Americans have currently.

Whatever they've tried is not working. It's really a matter of how they have tried to do things, ... J.C. Penney management is essentially a multi-headed hydra. It's the kind of situation where decisions have been made very, very slowly, and after a decision has finally been made, the need for the decision is gone.

Consumers are already concerned that the labor market continues to lag behind an economic recovery. They don't really need another negative distraction.

It's charitable to use the word 'dismal,' ... It's a reflection both of the weather and the contraction of the economy, and it really seems to have hit everybody.

It seems to be that a lot of these large chains are gravitating toward the advantages inherent in joint buying and obtaining lower prices and saving a lot of money in the process, ... ... It is very likely to be a powerful weapon in the retailer's arsenal to reduce the cost of buying and operating. And given the world of the Internet, which makes possible these alliances, it has to be recognized that consumers will find it so much easier these days to compare prices because all they have to do is click away.

What J.C. Penney needs to do is to make the stores they do have palatable, pleasant to shop, and all of this needs to be done with an eye toward recapturing the market they've lost,

The thing that drives retail sales most and best is job availability and the ease of obtaining new jobs. Both of these factors are absent at the present time. It may not be until the end of the year that we see job growth.

People are buying things they believe are essentially investments. They are buying homes and cars instead of buying jeans, shoes and toasters.

This is not the time for runaway enthusiasm. The first half was very good for retailers but consumers are going to be very wary in the second-half, ... if we're lucky.

It was really the department store chains and the apparel retailers that took it on the chin with weak January sales results. But a couple of names in those two groups are guiding higher than expected, predicated on expectations of lower promotional activity going into spring.

On the one hand he's extremely capable, a very strong manager, administrator and visionary. On the other hand he seems a bit remote from the field, ... He must absolutely acquire the sense of dealing directly with Mr. and Mrs. Consumer. Can he deal with someone who places an order for 10 rather than 10,000 or 10 million