Hot Trends Newsletter and Information

While industry executives and shoppers will remember 2008 as the year the party ended, figure 2009 to be the year of the hangover. Already, Circuit City, Linens 'N Things and Mervyn's stores are going away. Sharper Image is too, though the company will continue to sell some of its high-end gadgets through license agreements with other retailers.

More pain is on the way. One-third of U.S. women recently surveyed by America's Research Group said they plan no clothing purchases--none--in 2009. Normally, it's just 4%. That means the market is still far too saturated with stores.

Expect closings and bankruptcies to rattle the likes of Lane Bryant, Gap, and Starbucks. It's the inevitable counterpunch to the days of retailers fighting hand over fist for market share during an era of loose credit and minuscule interest rates.

Those days are over, probably for a long time. While accelerating unemployment will only last so long, consumers' debt loads and credit access don't figure to recover to pre-party levels for quite awhile.

"I don't think we will live the same way for 10 years," says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of New York-based retail consultant and investment bank Davidowitz & Associates. "People are so scared they're starting to save."

Retailers at risk in 2009, he thinks, include outerwear specialist Eddie Bauer and teen-apparel-seller Pacific Sunwear, along with Zales, the big jewelry chain. All three shuttered at least 8% of their U.S. stores last year, with many more closings expected.

The same is largely true of Charming Shoppes, the owner of Lane Bryant, which closed 150 stores last year. With a mountain of debt and losses totaling over $260 million over the most recent 12-month reporting period, the company will close another 100 locations this year.

Another possible casualty: Sears Holdings, operator of Sears and Kmart stores. A key to hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert's 2005 merger of the two chains was in the underlying real estate. But with those values down 30% or so since then, slumping sales hit even worse.

"I'd be surprised if Sears-Kmart makes it through the year," says Britt Beemer, who runs retail market-research firm America's Research Group.

Non-apparel specialists like Starbucks and Sprint Nextel won't be going away, but they will close hundreds more stores during the coming year, Davidowitz predicts.

Narrow specialties (Sprint's cellphones) and high prices (Starbucks' coffee) are tough sells as the consumer mood turns thrifty. What plagues Starbucks will also affect other upscale goody chains like Mrs. Fields' Cookies, and causal dining outlets like Applebee's and Cheesecake Factory. Any of the neighborhood outlets for those restaurant chains could be a casualty this year. For too many customers now, it's McDonald's or bust.

Davidowitz doesn't think a huge government stimulus will help. Better to let things bottom out naturally before regrouping. "Obama's plan will make it worse," he says. "We got into this by borrowing and stimulating, now he wants to borrow and stimulate more."

by Tom Van Riper, Forbes.com

Labels: business, hot trends 2009, retail, retailers, shopping

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Online retailer Amazon.com Inc on Friday reported its best holiday sales season yet, even as sales and traffic at U.S. store chains were the weakest in decades, sending its shares up nearly 4 percent.

Analysts have pointed to Amazon as a rare bright spot in this year's holiday shopping season due to its scale and flexibility, as retailers try to outdo each other with deep discounts to lure consumers during a recession.

Online sales were also helped by winter storms that hit large sections of the United States on the last major shopping weekend before Christmas.

In a release titled "Amazon.com's 14th holiday season is best ever," the company said more than 6.3 million items were ordered on its site worldwide for the peak shopping day of December 15, amounting to 72.9 items ordered per second.

On its peak day, it shipped more than 5.6 million units.

However, the company gave no financial details regarding the sales, such as how its margins fared with the discounts seen across the retail sector.

Reuters

Labels: Amazon, business, Christmas shopping, hot trends 2009

American fast-food chain Burger King has come up with a novel Christmas gift idea for the meat-loving man who has everything: barbecue-scented cologne.

Just in time for the festive season, the company has released its very own men's body spray, Flame.

Not recommended for vegetarians, Flame is being promoted as "the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broilled meat".

While the smell itself might not inspire confidence, the price will.

Flame is on sale for the credit crunch-busting sum of just $3.99 (£2.65), suggesting the Burger King promotions department has realised their contribution to the fragrance market might work best as a novelty stocking-filler.

Flame, a body spray for men, was launched this week online and in a selection of US stores - it is sadly not available in the UK, and now even has its own website, the appropriately named firemeetsdesire.com.

The site proudly proclaims to prospective buyers: "The Whopper sandwich is America's favourite burger," before going on to extol the virtues of a perfume that smells like cooked meat.

"Flame by BK captures the essence of that love and gives it to you. Behold ... now you can set the mood for whatever you're in the mood for."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3797892/Burger-King-releases-meat-scented-cologne.html

Labels: Burger King, business, cologne, hot trends 2009