Good News For Retailers From Mint.com

Mint.com is an award winning personal finance site that helps 900,000 US consumers track their spendings, and they may have a valuable piece of data for retailers.  I know most retailers are very glum these days with the worsening market reports.  But we should listen to Mint’s CEO Aaron Patzer because he has access to hard facts.  Aaron’s message to all retailers: “your customers are spending $400 less each month than they were a year ago, have burned through half of their savings, and on average have taken on an additional $5k in debt.” This is nothing to rejoice over but it’s certainly not Great Depression bad.  Every retailer (online and offline) will have to work a little harder every month but if you can keep your existing customers and push just a little harder to get a few more conversions then you should be able to keep sales from going down.  Those that can hold on till next year will have a disproportionate advantage when consumer spending picks up and half the competition is out of business.  Hang in there.