Well the title of this post may seem hard to believe with the way national retail sales have been going, but according to a recent survey in Elle magazine there is a group of consumers who are recession proof! 

I recently read online that Elle found that, "eight percent of all women in the U.S. are "recession proof" shoppers. At the median age of 29, this shopper is affluent with a median household income of $62,000... Elle states they are passionate shoppers with 57 percent spending over $2,000 or more per year on clothes and 40 percent spending $750 or more per year on accessories and footwear."

8%!  That number would normally seem small to me, but in this economy, I was impressed to find that this percentage of recession-proof shoppers existed.  Now, I just have to find how to get them into my store to spend that recession-proof dispensable income.

Of course Elle is a major fashion magazine, so the group surveyed probably is more inclined to shop for clothing, rather than home and gift items, but I wanted to share another finding from their survey which indicated that it was not just jeans and dresses that these women were splurging on, jewelry and handbags topped the lists as well. 

"According to the survey, "The majority of these "recession proof shoppers" will splurge on shoes (75 percent), handbags (70 percent), beauty (68 percent), evening/special occasion products (63 percent), jeans (63 percent), jewelry watches (57 percent) and weekend clothes (52 percent) - but not outwear/coats (41 percent) nor workout clothes (18 percent)."

This article gave me new hope this summer as sales have started to slow.  I realize that there is a niche market of individuals who are not affected by the economy, and will sacrifice and eat ramen noodles for a month in order to have this season's latest fashions!  Maybe these are the consumers I should focus on and market to?  The best quote from the survey, (which I found on retailwire.com), stated that to these women, "price is not the most important factor - it's getting just what I want."

I have always lived by this adage, and it is my job to convey to my customers that this is really the most important thing when making a buying decision.  You have to be in love with it!  And it is my job as a designer and a retailer to make clothes that my customers love, and hopefully can't be without, no matter what the state of the economy is!