Research and marketing analysis has indicated clearly that consumers will be reducing their big ticket item purchases this year and spending more time relaxing at home or holidaying locally this summer.

Australia’s coastal caravan and camping sites report that they are mostly fully booked already as the lower Australian currency makes international holidays very expensive. So if you’re retailing in Australian coastal areas its business as usual for souvenirs and holiday reminders.

One of the best ways for the budget conscious consumers to cut back their expenditure is to reduce major outgoings and costs that are not essential because they seriously don’t want to cut back on their little everyday luxuries.

Gourmet Cake manufacturer Epicurean Kitchen supplies fresh daily cakes and deserts to the cafes and restaurants of Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and even Canberra. Epicurean’s Managing Director, George Efremidis points out that his business was acquired by the family during the recession in 1994 when it went through a major growth spurt, purely because people, who enjoy a good slice of cake with their coffee, are not prepared to give up that little luxury in tough times.

Fine Dining and concert dates may be reduced, whereas an evening at home with a movie and home prepared meals and snacks is always a good cheap nights entertainment,

Most Australians probably know in their heart that if they are a little smarter with their money, their real living standards won’t suffer significantly.

In fact more home entertaining may cause an increase in sales for sectors like Cooking ingredients, BBQ and outdoor accessories retailers or DVD retail or rentals.

Whilst large ticket price items might be slow, budget retailer and discounters are possibly expecting a better season as the mindset of the shopper switches to bargain hunting this Christmas.

Online shopping is expected to increase as more buyers use the internet stores to compare prices and find the best prices.

An interesting article by author, speaker and marketing strategist Seth Godin analyses the strategies of marketing to the way consumers are thinking in hard times:-

” When times are good, buying things is a sport. It’s a reward. The story we tell ourselves is that we deserve it, that we want it and why not?

When the mass psychology changes and times are seen as not so good, the story we tell ourselves changes as well. Now, we buy out of defense, to avoid trouble. Or we buy because something will never be as cheap again. Or we buy smaller items for the same sense of reward.

Of course, the two different extremes can lead you to buy the very same thing. It’s not the thing so much as it’s the story.

Starbucks was the indulgence of a confident person happy to blow $4 on a cup of coffee. Starbucks can become the small indulgence for the person who just traded down to a small rented apartment.

The challenge for marketers is to figure out how to change the story they are living so that their customers can change the story they tell themselves. What you make, where you make it, who makes it, how it’s priced and sold and … it all adds up to a perception. If you change these elements the story will change too.”

The message demonstarted this article is that retailers can continue selling well in hard times if you think it through. You may just have to modify your products and/or presentation.

The rape of the Australian consumers and businesses by Australian banks acting like cartels continues with Westpac yesterday completing a $15 billion takeover of the St George Bank, formerly the hugely successful St George Building Society.

It is not so long since in 1992 we heard the directors of the St George Buildings Society claiming that they needed a banking licence so that their proposed new bank would create more competition.

That bank’s directors have now spat that approval back by consolidated it into another of the big four, which is really bad news for consumers and small business, and a move obviously supported by our floundering Dad & Dave Rudd labor government who have approved it.

The reason for this takeover is purely to profit from reduced competition and reduced services. Everybody knows that.

In the last 10 years or so Australian bank’s share prices have shot through the roof, significantly outperforming the index as banks were allowed to rort their customers with ever increasing fees because they simply have too little competition.

These banks didn’t even have to break the law and collude to keep increasing the fees over that period. There are just so few banks, that they each just kept putting their fees up and watched as the few competitor banks didn’t challenge them but followed suit.

Successive governments (who, in Australia, are foolishly allowed to receive “donations” from businesses) have allowed the situation to get worse and now in an environment of overwhelming bank fees, labor shows their true colours and blatantly approves a further reduction in banking competition.

This labor government even had the hide to place conditions on Westpac that required them to wait till after the next election before they start culling the St George Bank branches.

Does this Government think the Australian voters are naive enough not to see through this act of pretending to defend them here? Yes they do. In fact they actually know that any population that allows their governments to take “Donations” and accepts a two party preferred system of voting are totally naive.

Wake up Australia and speak out. Australia needs more banks not less. More competition not less and we need to hold politicians accountable.

They only way to get Australia out of the current 2 party preferred system that gives us so many unqualified politicians in positions of power, and under the influence of the sharks in big business, is for YOU to continually vote for independent candidates at every level of Government elections.