PRNewswire/ — Consumers are still feeling the pinch of an ongoing recession and the economy isn’t showing many signs of a recovery anytime soon. However, for some small businesses not all is doom and gloom.
“Whether or not you still have the ability to buy something, psychologically it impacts you and it makes you think twice about whether or not you really need to buy something,” said Al Ferrara, national director of the Retail and Consumer Product Practice at BDO USA. This sentiment has become a fact of life for many businesses that are still experiencing the effects of consumers watching their wallets.
But despite the malaise there are some positive signs in the sluggish economy. Some smaller retailers are beginning to turn in promising sales numbers. In a recent survey, the State of Small Business Report from the Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Project (PPCMP) reports almost half (44 percent) of small business owners say they plan to hire in the next 12 months.
One area that has been showing positive signs of improvement is the home improvement sector. Many homeowners, hesitant to sell or relocate in the still-battered housing market, are opting to spend money on remodeling.
“Home remodeling is picking up along the coast, it has been for the past few months and it looks like it’s going to hold strong,” said Mary Ann Leffel, President of the Monterey County Business Council in Monterey, California. This is good news for retailers serving this market. Some small businesses, like Rain Chains Direct (www.rainchainsdirect.com), based in Southern California and selling garden gutter accessories called rain chains, are reporting a 52% increase in sales over this period last year (2010).
Further evidence of this trend is supported by the Marketing Resource Group, Inc. (MRG) who released findings in their semi-annual Future Business Index study in October 2011, revealing among the 600 business owners included in their survey that profits have moved up 2 percentage points to 22% from the October 2010 survey. Time will if these trends are an early indicator of a coming recovery at large.
Contact:
Conrad Blevins
President, Rain Chains Direct
Phone: +1 310-801-4231
info@rainchainsdirect.com
SOURCE Rain Chains Direct
Rain Chains Direct – Web Site: http://www.rainchainsdirect.com
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