How will this financial mess affect rep world?

[TeeJay]

Well, last weekend, I was wearing this:

Seven days later, and I'm reduced to this:

Seriously though, I think the financial mess will affect the rep world in the way it affects other mainstream businesses related to 'extras', namely, sales will drop, for the simple reason that if folks are hard up, they're not going to have as much ready disposable income to spend on the unnecessary extras which make life that little bit better. In a way, while folks might be planning on selling their collections to put a little cash in their pockets (and I must admit, this thought has crossed my own mind recently) chances are other people are hard up too, so don't have the cash to make the purchases anyway... Hard to sell when folks can't really justify buying

[bpumod]

well, just to get a glimpse of how bad this is hitting ADs, i went to mayors to check out the ceramic GMT...they offered me 10% OFF. i will say that again...Mayor's offered to reduce the price of a new Ceramic GMT by 10%. If you've ever shopped at Mayor's you know exactly how crazy that is...they are desperate for business. the thing is you would think that customers of high end brands like rolex have plenty of disposable income for toys like that. if anything, the rep companies will be hit much harder. i for one used to buy 3-5 reps monthly...i haven't bought anything for 3 months. then again, judging by how much i've lost in stocks and real estate this year, i'm surprised i have enough money left to eat...

[TeeJay]

well, just to get a glimpse of how bad this is hitting ADs, i went to mayors to check out the ceramic GMT...they offered me 10% OFF. i will say that again...Mayor's offered to reduce the price of a new Ceramic GMT by 10%. If you've ever shopped at Mayor's you know exactly how crazy that is...they are desperate for business. the thing is you would think that customers of high end brands like rolex have plenty of disposable income for toys like that. if anything, the rep companies will be hit much harder. i for one used to buy 3-5 reps monthly...i haven't bought anything for 3 months. then again, judging by how much i've lost in stocks and real estate this year, i'm surprised i have enough money left to eat...

The thing you have to remember, is that although such people might live in a higher income bracket, they still have corresponding outgoings like utilities, mortgages, etc (even Mischa Barton bought her home on a mortgage, rather than a celeb-style wad-of-cash-outright-payment ) In that regard, recession is a great equalizer. The only people who might be better off, are those with considerable savings which they can use to supplement their incomes, but all in all, pretty much everyone's tight for cash, so accordingly, businesses are having to compensate in ways like you've mentioned. They're desperate for business, so have to give people real incentives to spend cash on what is, ultimately, an unnecessary indulgence purchase... Things should pick up eventually, but it may be a while before things are completely stabilized.