Word: gift
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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What might be the driving factor that lowers holiday retail sales and stalls a much-anticipated economic recovery? Stingy spouses with children. According to a new survey from America's Research Group, a retail-consulting firm, 50.1% of parents plan on cutting back on gifts to each other this year. That figure is up from 44.4% last year, a surprising jump considering that the U.S. was in the depths of the financial crisis during the previous holiday season. "Parents want to maintain gift-spending levels for their kids, so they are showing more willingness to trim on each other," says...
Thanks in part to these forecasted cuts in spouse-to-spouse gifting, Beemer is predicting a 2.9% drop in holiday retail sales, compared with a 2.7% drop a year ago. "I know some analysts are predicting positive numbers, but I just don't see it working out as well," he says. Given his track record - Beemer's sales predictions have been accurate within a half of 1% over the past 17 of 18 holiday seasons - the economy shouldn't expect a Christmas gift. "It's a heck of a challenging time," says Mark Israel, president of Hearts on Fire...
...also find a flurry of deals for both husbands and wives online. On the discount site Couponcabin.com, Ann Taylor is offering $50 off any $150-or-higher Web purchase through Jan. 5. You can get free shipping for Hammacher Schlemmer products over $89. Then there are the gifts that both Mom and Dad can enjoy. Restaurant.com, for example, is offering 50% gift certificates. Get a babysitter and leave the kids at home. More consumers are searching for deals: on PriceGrabber.com, the number of shoppers requesting e-mail alerts for low-priced offers...
...like nice tea shops, where salespeople behind a counter open glass jars so you can smell the Sugar Kush, look at the Purple Urkel under a magnifying lens and ask about the effects of Hindu Skunk. At the Farmacy, I spun a wheel to determine my first-time-buyer gift and was handed a pot lollipop. If the pot-dispensary people ran General Motors, the recession would be over. Although GM cars would be engineered to just stare idly at the road for hours. Which is more than they're good for now. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Great...
Good evening. Please, don't be alarmed. You may call me ... Don Grossman. You might know me from such Facebook status updates as Don Grossman won a fight with your help! and Don Grossman sent you a gift in Mafia Wars. Yes, that's right. I'm in the mafia. Uh, wars. I'm in Mafia Wars...