US Retailers "Christmas Hard" &Nbsp, Business Profits Pressure

The economy is weak and the Christmas shopping season in the United States is increasing.

November 26th is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States.

According to a survey released by the US Consumer Federation 21, American consumers are still not out of the shadow of the economic crisis. Most of them feel worse than last year. Nearly half of the respondents said they would reduce their shopping season in the coming holiday season.

The Federation announced the consumption survey report of the national holidays on the same day with the National Credit Union Association.

The report shows that 37% of respondents believe that the financial situation is not as good as last year, 7 percentage points higher than last year; 41% of respondents said they would reduce spending during the holiday shopping season, and from 2000 to 2007, this proportion is usually below 30%.

Bill Hampel, chief economist of the National Credit Union Association, said that the good news is that consumer spending has increased over the most serious period of decline in 2008 and in 2009. The bad news is that consumer spending is still significantly lower than pre recession levels.

The report also shows that most families who earn more than $100 thousand a year are better off than last year, while half of families earning less than $25 thousand a year are not as good as last year.

According to statistics, more than half of the families in the United States earn less than 50 thousand dollars a year.

The report also showed that the proportion of people who worried about the monthly payment of credit card expenses increased from 24% to 27%, worried that the percentage of people who could repay all kinds of debts (including mortgages) monthly increased from 43% to 45%.

According to a new survey released by the American Business Economics Association 21, economists expect that the US economic growth rate will continue to slow next year. The G D P will increase by 2.5% in the fourth quarter and 2.4% in 2012.

In addition, the report predicts that the US unemployment rate will decline slightly from the current level of 9%, but it remains at a high level.

The weak economic situation is bound to affect consumer behavior.

A recent survey by N PD, an American market research firm, found that 81% of consumers believed that the current economic situation did have an impact on their consumption behavior, up from 78% in 2010 and 79% in 2009.

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US consumer spending accounts for about 70% of GDP and is the main engine of economic growth.

The fourth Thursday of November is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. The black Friday after Thanksgiving marks the formal arrival of the annual holiday shopping season in the United States and continues until Christmas and new year's day.

Under normal circumstances, sales at the end of the year holiday season account for 25% to 40% of the annual retail sales in the US. This is the most important moment to determine the success or failure of the business year.

Despite all the signs, retailers are still busy working on holidays.

WAL-MART retailers, represented by WAL-MART, are preparing to offer discount promotions from the evening of 24, increasing advertising spending and striving to get a slice of the Limited shopping plan.

Some news in recent days did bring hope to businesses.

According to a recent survey by the National Retail Federation, about 152 million of consumers plan to enter the shopping mall in November 25th, which is 10.1% higher than last year's 138 million.

Earlier, a joint report by University of Michigan and Reuters showed that in November, the initial value of consumer confidence index was 64.2, which exceeded the final value of 60.9 in October, indicating that consumers' expectations for the future have improved.

However, analysts say that even so, Christmas shopping season may not bring optimistic earnings prospects for businesses.

In 2010, for example, on Friday, Thursday, Friday and weekend on black Friday, there were about 212 million people visiting shopping malls and websites, and the average cost of US consumers was $365.34, which is 8.7% and 6.4% higher than that of the previous year.

However, Phil List, executive vice president of BIG research company, soberly pointed out that despite the encouraging increase in both the number of shoppers and sales, "the impetus to boost Thanksgiving holidays is actually the enthusiasm of consumers to find discounts and special offers, rather than consumer confidence in the economy".

This year, the discount also increased the pressure of business profits.

In addition, Barclays Capital analyst said that during the Christmas shopping season, businesses were increasing their employees and launching free pportation services to increase the cost of goods, labor and pportation. This year, the expected profit of American shopping centers and retail chains will drop by 0.4%.