Sales and Enquiries - Just stopped?

[Evanism]

I've noticed something weird over the last four weeks.... sales and enquiries from people have just completely stopped.

Im not commercial sales of tools, so Im not seeing that aspect of things - but other areas from which I had a regular number of enquiries from have turned to zip - ebay, gumtree, old customers, referrals, etc. It tapered off quite aggressively after xmas.

A gumtree ad that has been a regular puller of enquiries has yielded nothing for 4 weeks (even after I changed it), eBay prices are low, and I've noticed even things on the Marketplace here aren't selling with any vigour (Id expect it to be brisk trade).

Anyone else have this experience? Any commercial dudes here who work in workshops, sales/shops or fitouts care to anonymously chime in with their experiences?

[rustynail]

Its the silly season. Here in NSW we are coming up for an election. Be it election or budget announcement, both have the ability to send the lemmings running for cover. During my years in marketing, we watched this phenomenon with great interest and found it always to be so.

[johnc]

I think the bottom dropped out of most retail after Christmas, blame NSW elections, blame Canberra, blame ISIS, probably a combination of bad news and shallow pockets holding people back.

[BobL]

Was in at H&F today and asked how the sale went and the salesman wrinkled his nose and shook his head indicating is was not that successful.
A sign of the economy going a bit quiet?

[_fly_]

Was in at H&F today and asked how the sale went and the salesman wrinkled his nose and shook his head indicating is was not that successful.
A sign of the economy going a bit quiet?

I know the aussie dollar went down but the sale prices now were higher than the normal prices from 6 months ago.
Thats what put me off from going this time.

[Master Splinter]

Well, we've had the defrocking worries about the mad monk (and what will happen to him if the NSW election goes to Labor?), the Canberra region's pocket has been hit by 18 months of stalled negotiations on public servant pay and reductions/interstate movement of jobs, there's "Budget 2.0" coming out, with "Budget 1.0" still not all passed, Hockey and co. keep being depressing with their total inability to come up with economic policies other than "Lets provide some extra benefits to those earning over $750,000pa, because it's so hard to keep two kids in exclusive schools and run two holiday homes and pay off four cars, you just don't know how tough it is for them", not to mention their "Lets Make Medicare Better by Getting Rid Of It" philosophy.

Plus the bum's fallen out of the iron, coal and gas markets and the dollar has dropped against the USD.

I do wish politicians would learn that they are elected, not because they are particularly liked or well thought of, but simply because at the time, they were slightly less on the nose than the other party.

But hey, we don't have a carbon tax anymore! I hope you all noticed how much smaller your power bills got because of that (I know, you're all keen to blow the money on mebby, like, a extra large cappuccino instead of a regular one!)

[_fly_]

Well, we've had the defrocking worries about the mad monk (and what will happen to him if the NSW election goes to Labor?), the Canberra region's pocket has been hit by 18 months of stalled negotiations on public servant pay and reductions/interstate movement of jobs, there's "Budget 2.0" coming out, with "Budget 1.0" still not all passed, Hockey and co. keep being depressing with their total inability to come up with economic policies other than "Lets provide some extra benefits to those earning over $750,000pa, because it's so hard to keep two kids in exclusive schools and run two holiday homes and pay off four cars, you just don't know how tough it is for them", not to mention their "Lets Make Medicare Better by Getting Rid Of It" philosophy.

I do wish politicians would learn that they are elected, not because they are particularly liked or well thought of, but simply because at the time, they were slightly less on the nose than the other party.

I've got no trouble with the existing govt trying to balance the books.
I'd rather that than borrow more and more money and us going further in debt to someone that we have to pay back someday (unless your greece who won't pay it back).
I just think they tried to do it all in a 1 yr period and not spread it out a bit, it was all a bit much tightening a bit to quick.

No opposition wins government, The guys who are in get kicked out.
Thats the way it goes.

[elanjacobs]

I do wish politicians would learn that they are elected, not because they are particularly liked or well thought of, but simply because at the time, they were slightly less on the nose than the other party.

Yep. It's been a long time since anyone actually won an election on their own merit instead of simply not being the other guy.

[johnc]

I've got no trouble with the existing govt trying to balance the books.
I'd rather that than borrow more and more money and us going further in debt to someone that we have to pay back someday (unless your greece who won't pay it back).
I just think they tried to do it all in a 1 yr period and not spread it out a bit, it was all a bit much tightening a bit to quick.

No opposition wins government, The guys who are in get kicked out.
Thats the way it goes.

You may not have noticed but the new lot are going into debt even faster than the old lot. I don't support any side, there is a failure of leadership across the board, this lot are as useless and pathetic as the ones we kicked out

[Evanism]

I was more hoping for a discussion along the lines of "yeah, our store numbers have dropped, but we are selling X better"... all woodwork related, rather than a comparative study of the evils of tyrannical government.

If you want a real discussion - think about 100% of your super being forcibly confiscated and converted into a government run annuity.

But anyway, my query is from the perspective that I get about a job every 2 days.... I keep it on the low boil as I do it for fun, not an occupation... but what I've noticed is the numbers of people wanting work down is zeroing down - especially over the last 4 weeks and not part of the post-xmas lul that we all know.

I was hoping there are some tradies or stores/fabs/machinists here that have also seen this?

[Arron]

Yep, remarkably slow. Christmas was half of what it was the year before, then declining since.

I can think of a lot of reasons which mostly involve the budget and the Gvt but I dont really feel any of them can fully account for the drop-off.

Obviously this intense slowdown is not economy-wide though. If it was the effect on the economy would be catastrophic - like the Gfc but much worse. My understanding is that general retail figures are poor but not exceptional.


Just as some wild speculation on what you may be experiencing - something to ask yourself is whether a large percentage of your business is to baby boomers - a high percentage of which are on fixed incomes. They will respond really quickly to adverse events, which is not surprising as their nest eggs are very vulnerable to gvt policy and they are not in a position to remake money lost. Even the ones still working are more cautious with money and not inclined to indulge themselves - its just the way we were brought up. I find it easier to target gen x and y - the got to have it and got to have it now generations.

Cheers
Arron

[johnc]

We also have very low wage growth, it's possible there is a decline in disposable income, a lot of spending used to come from young families who now seem to be the group with huge mortgages. Generally sudden retail drops are due to loss of confidence or peoples attention being diverted to something else. something else can be elections or bad news. Government has a lot to do with how we feel, if there is no political direction people don't feel that good about spending. News of plane crashes, bad economic news, cyclones, warnings of impending doom can have a profound impact.

The real question is when will it pick up, car sales figures tend to kick up first, we have been in this for awhile, nothing will happen before the May budget, hopefully in July we will start to see spending lift. I reckon it is partly disposable income partly a lack of political direction, you aren't hearing many positive discussions in general so people are being cautious.

There is zero informed commentary about the government seizing pensions, those comments are your classic baseless negativity that helps feed these downturns.