signs of the economy

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Couture's Gallery

Couture's Gallery

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Posts
7,286
Loc
Young Harris, Ga
My wife made her annual visit to High Point to refill our inventory of home decor, silk plants, etc etc that we have in our shop....usually it takes 6-8 weeks for the stuff to arrive (they don't collect funds until it ships)...well out of the 6 vendors she bought from, 4 have already arrived in less than 2 weeks, and 2 more are due in next week....a sign of the economy no doubt, because it is usually impossible to get thAT FAST SHIPPING IF YOU BEG FOR IT. One day I had 2 -18 wheelers fighting to get into the lot to unload. guess everyone wants to get the money fast and have probably had a severe lack of orders so they can ship fast?///
 
I've also noticed faster than normal delivery on a few things.

Another thing is that more of my customers have been paying with cash, check, or debit card. The use of credit cards has been way down. You would think that more people would be putting things on the card to delay payment but I think the smart ones are putting away their cards for a while.
 
The scariest sign of the times, to me, is others talking about how bad it is, outside of the "Rustbelt" AKA the midwest.
 
I've noticed lots of changes in people's buying habits. We depend a lot upon people outside our county to patronize us. Those people we still see, but not nearly as often. They may have come into our store 2x per month, but now maybe we see them once a month or once every other month. On the flip side, we are beginning to see more of our local people shop our store. Used to be they would all flock to the nearby college town to do their shopping.

I've also noticed it's easier to get a table at a resturant. My wife is cooking more at home and I'm reading more in the newpaper about people siphoning gas out of gas tanks.
 
Most of our gift and home decor suppliers seem to be shipping quite a bit quicker than they have in the past. Sales reps are telling me that they are down 25% but are happy with that since many are down by much more. Yet most of the customer service pretty much sucks, except for the experienced reps who have seen just as many bad times as they have seen good. Moulding reps that call on us seem to be keeping even with last year but do not seem too confident about some of their smaller accounts.

We went out to eat last night, went to a restaurant which usually you have to wait for 30-60 minutes (don't take reservations) but well worth the wait. We walked in and the GM was there to greet us, I asked how long of a wait and he said "Tim, I have never seen it like this, I could sit a party of 20 right now and still give you a table" The place had a semi steady flow of people but never did anyone have to wait and there was always at least 25% of the tables empty.

Had a NY Strip steak over a sweet potato and andouille sausage hash. MMM, MMM GOOD!!!
 
Sign of the times

In my immediate area 5 major small businesses closed or are closing. An organic beauty supply store (after 20 years), a professional photography studio (5 years), an import folkart gift store (5 years), a furniture store (5 years), and another one just announced its closing after 15 years in business. Looking at my numbers from the past couple years, this year will be the worst ever. This last week I had 1 (one) order. May ususally is slow, but never this bad....
 
We evacuated Disney World.

Average ticket for a family of four for the week, using all of the discounts that money could buy (excluding trinket or clothing type purchases) $3,800.

Lunch for two at the "cafeteria style" Pepper Market $34 with NO desert.

Bibbity, Bobbity Boutique; "turn your Pumpkin into a Princess", Hair, make-up, dress, crown, sash and photo $179-229. There is nothing for little boys.

Dinner reservations made the day before for Thursday night at Fulton's Fish House--- earliest was 8:40. Friday night at the Italian Portabella's was 8:10
and to round it out that Wednesday morning... we asked for the earliest at the Wilderness Lodge Signature restaurant: 9:40pm. So we opted for a cancellation at the Animal Kingdom Lodge at 6:40. After dinner we looked into their cafeteria area.... jammed with families, as was the pool area.

You can't get a room in the Most Expensive Place on Earth between now and October, and forget Xmas time.

Does any of this make sense?
 
had a thought--in the middle of a night, recently--if petrol prices keep going UP & UP, thats gonna mean more & more truckers are gonna have a harder & harder time staying on the road to deliver our 'stuff' AND we are gonna have a much harder time paying for the pleasure!!!!!!!!!!
SO I was wondering just where the railroads are/have been/will be??????? wouldnt you think theyd be heavily invested/investing in roll-on freight cars???????? we should be seeing mile long freights with nothing on them but rollon cars destined, not for OTR but for local short hauls/pickup/delivery---would absolutely crippple the freight charge increases that are coming up for this ''simple' task, and should actually decrease delivery times(OTR's are 'supposed' to only run, what?, 6-9 hrs/day???) while trains run 24/7....make it from NY-CA in 2-3 days (and instate delivery on the next?).
course this whole idea presuposes all those LOOOONG neglected railbeds are capable of handeling the extra traffic on such short notice ... maitenance/upgrading same would be a project of gargantuan proportions by itself....wouldnt you think our nations gov would have at least 1 commission/department dedicated to overseeing that the nations railroads are capable of 'carryng the freight'??????????????????????? almost make me start buying stock in the railroads(they DO still do that, dont they?). I'm thinking their stock is gonna go thru the roof(if any of their board members/congress have anything between their earlobes-course they havent seem to have done anything positive in that direction for the last 50-60 years) ---- still, isn't THIS a green idea?????????(simplistic, too)
 
I try to remember that history did not begin with us. The past offers lessons, and one of them is that it is near impossible to sustain permanent economic growth and remain at near full employment without suffering adjustment contractions now and then.

No question that higher fuel costs drive up other costs almost everywhere. However, as a nation we likely have a much higher level of discretionary income (see: Baer's post) than ever before. To me, that means we can absorb more fuel cost by altering discretionary spending, such as eating out less (see: Tim's earlier post) so next year we can take the kiddies and grandkiddies to Disney World.

Might mean less framing this year compared to last, but business always expands and contracts. The answer is tighter belts, more efficiency, less waste, better marketing -- all good things. Not every business can or will do what is needed, and those may close. This will result in fewer restaurants and framers who will likely gain customers, putting things in balance again for awhile.
 
We just got back from an annual show that we do at Rugby, TN (www.historicrugby.org) Rugby is a very "out of the way" place, but the show is usually well attended.

This year the vendors were somewhat fewer, and crowd was down a little. Many of the craftspeople and artists were complaining of lack of sales - but ours, on the other hand was the best we've ever had. Plus we gave out a lot of brochures for future customers, and had a lot of interest in caning classes.

It always seems like when everyone else's sales are down, ours are always up. Don't have a clue why.:shrug:
 
Betty - maybe your market share is UP because you deal with the repair and refurbishment of customer's old and beloved items??? Maybe folk are tending to be less interested in buying brand new than fixing tried and true?!? Talk about a GREEN business!!!
 
BILL WARD said:
wondering just where the railroads are/have been/will be??????? wouldnt you think theyd be heavily invested/investing in roll-on freight cars????????

course this whole idea presuposes all those LOOOONG neglected railbeds are capable of handeling the extra traffic on such short notice ... maitenance/upgrading same would be a project of gargantuan proportions by itself....wouldnt you think our nations gov would have at least 1 commission/department dedicated to overseeing that the nations railroads are capable of 'carryng the freight'??????????????????????? almost make me start buying stock in the railroads(they DO still do that, dont they?).
Click to expand...

Gunnerson is a local steel manufacturing company. They aren't working to capacity as of yet, but their orders for larger and larger ocean going barges and generalized flat rail cars for containers has been very steady these last several years. My friend (one of their certified welders) says that there is noise about putting on the third shift in 2009 or sooner if orders increase.

If the Feds subsidized rail like they do the airlines, we would have rail service that would rival Europe.

As for RR stock, you could do a lot worse then Burlington Northern or Southern Pacific.... China Index Fund comes to mind (Now down only 78%). :D
 
Baer Charlton said:
If the Feds subsidized rail like they do the airlines, we would have rail service that would rival Europe.
Click to expand...

US Airlines are doing a fine job of going out of business without Fed subsidies... Thank you very much.

BTW the old "state" European Airlines are trying very hard to catch up since subsidies were terminated in the EEC.
 
I've noticed that traffic during my drive to and from the store is noticeably lighter than it used to be. There are some regular choke-points, and even these have been really light. I don't know whether more people are carpooling, or telecommuting, or taking public transit. Maybe they are as a response to gas prices, but I suspect there are a lot of employers that have laid off people, and you just don't hear about it because these aren't the places that lay off thousands at a time.
 
As some of you know, I am a county commissioner. Today, as a result of the economy and high fuel prices, we mandated a 55 mph speed limit on all county vehichles, other than emergency vehicles. We've eliminated all travel to out of town meetings that were not pertinent and have relevant subject matter. We've changed all the thermostat settings to 78 degrees (boy does that have the help b...ing). And we've asked every department to eliminate any unnecessary trips around town. That's a start.

On the framing side, I think the economy may create some opportunities for us. For instance just Saturday I had a couple come into the store to look at our mouldings. They had just come from the furniture store where they were looking for some nice prints/paintings. What they found was more than they wanted to spend, so they brought some of the ones they had at home for us to re-frame. These were prints that were in very cheap plastic frames, but are attractive. So, instead of spending $500 or $600 at the furniture store, they're spending a couple $100 at our place and are happy as can be. (And so am I;))
 
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