Beige Book OK; Shoppers Aim for the Basics

About 40 New England companies, give or take, told the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston how business is going for them. The results were published in the fed’s Beige Book and they were sort of upbeat.

BRADBURY: Most of the people we spoke with said there were some signs of pick-up in activity or hopeful signs in other ways.

Cathy Bradbury is senior economist at the Boston Fed. People in manufacturing, staffing firms, and residential real estate had the brightest news, but every sector report came with a caveat.

BRADBURY: Most of them are also reporting that activity is still well below where it was a year ago.

Bradbury says the sector with the biggest positive mood shift was manufacturing.

BRADBURY: They feel they’ve made the adjustments they need to make and their company will make it through and the economy is going to recover. And they weren’t, if we are looking at six months ago, they weren’t sure about either of those things.

Commercial real estate had the bleakest outlook. Vacancies remain high and some in that field told the fed that the worst is yet to come.

We had a lot of activity on the Working It Out site – you can think of it as the state’s own, low rent version of the beige book survey.

Members of the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce posted their notes about what they see going on. About half of them said they were doing pretty well, whether they do web design or recycle printer cartridges.

But retailers tell a different story. This item from Sarah in Concord caught my eye. She manages a clothing store. I tried to reach her and couldn’t. So do her words justice, I asked for some help from my NHPR colleague, Amy Quinton. Amy, do me a favor and read some of what Sarah wrote about what people are buying.

"The trend has shifted from special, interesting garments to ones customers think they will get the most life and use out of. Popular items have switched from interesting colors and patterns to seasonless items or "basics"."

And then she says

"Despite their interest in being "reasonable", customers seem to be unhappy. Most complain and say things like, "while I'd love to spend my money on something pretty, I need to be rational and buy the white one, since I can wear it more"."

Thank you Amy.

So there it is. Another nuance on a theme we’ve been hearing recently about consumer spending. Not only will we not be shopping our way out of recession, we won’t be doing it in style.

With this economic round up, I’m Jon Greenberg.