Amerika is on sale!
NEW YORK (PNN) - October 5, 2009 - There has never been a better time to be a consumer. Amerika is on sale.
The Second Great Depression has caused massive job losses and hardship for millions, but it has also fostered a shopper’s paradise. Anyone who still has the means to spend can find unheard of deals.
Prices on everything from clothes to coffee to cat food are dropping, some faster than they have in half a century. Items rarely discounted - like Tiffany engagements rings - are now being offered at substantially lowered prices. The two biggest purchases most people make - homes and new cars - are selling at steep price reductions.
"This is the new normal," says Donald Keprta, president of Dominick's, a supermarket chain in the Midwest, which just cut prices by as much as 30% on thousands of items. "We aren't going back."
Consumers relish the steals, like Karen Wilmes, a mother of two from Hopkinton, Rhode Island. During a recent trip to Shaw's Supermarkets, she bought a basketful of goods, including Eggo waffles, Kleenex tissues, and Betty Crocker cake mix. The retail price: $63.89. Wilmes paid $7.31 by buying items on sale and using coupons.
"The deals out there are unbelievable," says Wilmes, 36, who writes the Frugal Rhode Island Mama blog, which tracks local and national bargains. "We can put the money I save toward something else."
She's doing just that, but only when she can find another deal. Wilmes and her husband recently bought a Samsung television from Best Buy's web site for $1,299, about $300 less than she found at other stores. She also got free delivery and another $13 back from ebates.com, which receives commissions from online retailers for directing customers their way.
What's happening now has been building for years. Wal-Mart Stores introduced "every-day low prices" many years ago. Amazon.com redefined the idea of bargain prices during the late 1990s when it helped introduce online shopping. After the 2001 recession, automakers introduced zero-percent financing to boost sales. McDonald's "Dollar Meals" made fast food even cheaper.
But until the Second Great Depression came along, consumers hadn't seen anything yet.
Last fall's financial meltdown triggered a plunge in stock prices and home values and wiped out 11% - $6.6 trillion - of household wealth in six months. It also put an end to easy credit, which had fueled the consumption that powered the economy for most of the decade.
Those who still have jobs don't want to spend as they once did. There is a new societal pressure to be careful and smart when buying almost anything. From Chicago's Miracle Mile to malls around Orange County, Kalifornia, it was once a status symbol to trot around with armloads of shopping bags with designer names on them. Now it's considered ostentatious.
The Second Great Depression has caused massive job losses and hardship for millions, but it has also fostered a shopper’s paradise. Anyone who still has the means to spend can find unheard of deals.
Prices on everything from clothes to coffee to cat food are dropping, some faster than they have in half a century. Items rarely discounted - like Tiffany engagements rings - are now being offered at substantially lowered prices. The two biggest purchases most people make - homes and new cars - are selling at steep price reductions.
"This is the new normal," says Donald Keprta, president of Dominick's, a supermarket chain in the Midwest, which just cut prices by as much as 30% on thousands of items. "We aren't going back."
Consumers relish the steals, like Karen Wilmes, a mother of two from Hopkinton, Rhode Island. During a recent trip to Shaw's Supermarkets, she bought a basketful of goods, including Eggo waffles, Kleenex tissues, and Betty Crocker cake mix. The retail price: $63.89. Wilmes paid $7.31 by buying items on sale and using coupons.
"The deals out there are unbelievable," says Wilmes, 36, who writes the Frugal Rhode Island Mama blog, which tracks local and national bargains. "We can put the money I save toward something else."
She's doing just that, but only when she can find another deal. Wilmes and her husband recently bought a Samsung television from Best Buy's web site for $1,299, about $300 less than she found at other stores. She also got free delivery and another $13 back from ebates.com, which receives commissions from online retailers for directing customers their way.
What's happening now has been building for years. Wal-Mart Stores introduced "every-day low prices" many years ago. Amazon.com redefined the idea of bargain prices during the late 1990s when it helped introduce online shopping. After the 2001 recession, automakers introduced zero-percent financing to boost sales. McDonald's "Dollar Meals" made fast food even cheaper.
But until the Second Great Depression came along, consumers hadn't seen anything yet.
Last fall's financial meltdown triggered a plunge in stock prices and home values and wiped out 11% - $6.6 trillion - of household wealth in six months. It also put an end to easy credit, which had fueled the consumption that powered the economy for most of the decade.
Those who still have jobs don't want to spend as they once did. There is a new societal pressure to be careful and smart when buying almost anything. From Chicago's Miracle Mile to malls around Orange County, Kalifornia, it was once a status symbol to trot around with armloads of shopping bags with designer names on them. Now it's considered ostentatious.
