Economy/Business question
 

Those of you whose business depends a great deal on peoples discretionary income, how much is your business down compared to LY?

I'm in the mattress industry which is discretionary in that people will wait since most people have one already. Business across the country is down 20%-30%. People are closing up shop both as manufacturers and retailers. Retailers are getting killed as fixed expenses don't change.

Spyder

Me no scam consumer.

That is what I am hearing from others as well. More input from others would be great.

Thanks Sypdie

Kev my stores are up 4 percent I think it all depends what area of business your in. Some businesses are chugging along while some are off 40 percent.

There was a article in the news that Vegas which is considered recession proof is now feeling the impact. Flights will be down 12% and hotels 18% is what I think they quoted, they are now re-inventing their marketing and appealing to more local business, giving away gas cards, and the convention source has significantly dropped.

ILY

When life throws you lemons...piss in a hobo's mouth.

I'm in the grocery business. The company I work for is one of the power houses in the Midwest with over 200 stores and growing. Funny thing is this came up at a Meeting I was at this past Saturday before our Grand Opening of the store I am at now.

For our existing stores, business is up 15% across the board ending this fiscal year (our fiscal year ends in June) compared to fiscal year ending 2007. Keep in mind we have a great fuel perks program that can save our customers a ton of money on gas they purchase from our stations based on how much they spend in our stores.

i'm a serviceman for the electric dept. people aren't paying thier electric bills until they have to. the first week of april is usually VERY busy and the last week of oct doing cut-offs for non-payment. (CONPs) because of the warm spring and early summer heat we cut off 85 today and about that many tomorrow. the bills are climbing and we're trying to keep them in hand.

I hear a lot of places have (or are beginning) legislation to ban cutting off someone's electricity/gas when the temp rises above 95 degrees, etc...have you seen this?

we had this discussion this morning if we should do them or not.. wash. dc does not cut-off above 95* i do know that one.
i work for a city govt. the public service commission has different rules for us than for private companies. it's actually tougher for us to do CON-P's so we have to do them when we can. april 1- oct 31 we have few restrictions. nov 1- march 31 we can do CON-P's but we have to jump through hoops. they have to be notified 2 times. once is the termination bill, second is a 24hrs notice hand delivered. then we have to notify the PSC, if they ok it, we then have a 10 day window to do the disconnect, it must stay above 32* for about 24hrs after. each states PSC regs are different. Pennsylvania has a regulation i love for us to have. in Pa. if a tenant is evicted or skips out and owes a electric bill. the owner has to pay the bill to have service restored, then fight with the tenant to get the money. a Pa. town 30 miles to our north has a 90% collection rate and doesn't have near the trouble we do. they've not had the "trash" and slumlords move into their town and the regulation is part of the reason.

I mine and sell quartz crystals for a living, very much discretionary. U.S. business is way down, but fortunately for me 90% of my customers are from Europe or Japan. The last 2 years have been great. With the value of the U.S. dollar being so low, my foreign buyers get way more bang for their buck, and are spending more than ever. Just 5-10 years ago it was the other way around, and they were the ones complaining. My cost of production however is WAY up, and may become a problem in the next few years. (Might be time to get a real job)

Interesting, thanks. What has been the leading cause of your production cost increasing?

Mainly the cost of diesel fuel.

I don't ever have much reason to pay attention to the price of diesel...but what is it where you are? $5.00-$5.25?

I think he walked down to the station to find out for ya.

well....mighty kind of 'em.


Would you have done the same?

It varies, but yeah about 5.00. We have a compressor, 2 backhoes, a loader, and a dump truck so it adds up fast.

:rolleyes: