Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

Like many of you, I just got back from RECon, and I’m still processing what I saw and heard. One thing that was interesting to me was the fact that it seemed like burger concepts were on everybody’s site plans, from In-N-Out Burger to Smashburger and Five Guys. If you like a good burger -- and, who doesn’t -- this is great news. If you are a developer or landlord though, I think you should proceed with some caution.

New York City -- Chainstoreage.com columnist Jeff Green challenges the boon of the burgeoning burger concepts, posing the question: “Are burger joints here to stay or just a trendy restaurant theme that will overextend itself and “fall of the map” in a few years?

Check out Jeff’s latest column on the real estate community page: chainstoreage.com/article/burger-bonanza-rare-or-well-done

On average, across the retailer set, both the number of inserts and number of page counts decreased when comparing the month of May 2011 to May 2010. Notable standouts for the insert counts include a decline of 39% for Home Depot and an 11% decrease for Lowe’s.  While both Home Depot and Lowe’s dropped fewer inserts this year compared to last year, Home Depot’s decline was more pronounced from nearly seven inserts in 2010 to four in 2011.

Atlanta -- A report released Thursday by First Data Corp. said that consumer spending growth slowed in May as concerns about the economy mounted.

According to the First Data SpendTrend analysis for the full month of May 2011, which tracks same-store consumer spending by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT cards and checks at U.S. merchant locations, year-over-year dollar volume growth slowed to 6.6%, the lowest monthly growth rate in 2011.

Washington, D.C. -- On Wednesday, the Senate rejected the Tester-Corker amendment to delay swipe-fee reform.

The enormity of the Chinese e-commerce opportunity was mentioned last week by Wan Ling Martello at Walmart’s shareholders meeting, when the COO of global e-commerce described how China’s online market is projected to quadruple to $300 billion in five years. Walmart obviously wants to be part of that growth and looked to shorten its learning curve earlier this year by acquiring a minority stake in fast growing online grocer Yihaodian.

In the May 26 edition of SiteTalk, we asked the question, "Did you attend RECon 2011 in Las Vegas this week? If so, what was your key takeaway from the show?"  This is what several readers had to say:

Norwalk, Conn. -- Retail chief financial officers (CFOs) of U.S. middle-market companies are becoming more optimistic concerning the state of the industry, according to the latest GE Capital survey of  retail CFOs of companies with revenues ranging from $50 million to $1 billion.