How's the economy?

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makaiolani

makaiolani

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Joined
Jan 6, 2008
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435
Location
Honolulu, HI, USA.
I just wanted to get an accurate response to those of you that are consumers. Being a Financial Planner in my past life it's hard to cut through all the smoke that the analysts blow out of their butts. So I thought this would be an excellent way of getting a gauge on how the economy "feels" to people across the country.

Hawaii has been okay for now, but my sales have started to decline at my shop in the mall. How are everyone's pen sales doing if you do in fact sell them?
 
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The high end stuff is still moving, but the less expensive pens are sitting. The economy is hitting most people pretty hard it seems. I don't even want to think about fuel oil this winter.
 
Hi Aaron,

The economy here in Idaho has been pretty stable. Housing, jobs, retail - all of that is good here. The one blip we have seen is that as high gas prices cause people to cut back on travel, reducing the amount of taxes being collected for highway projects, and thereby cutting back on maintenance of our roads. Whatever! As for selling pens? I don't sell many pens anyway, and that hasn't changed.

Scott.
 
It's noticably tougher around here. With prices going up (gas and food staples) people are having less money to spend on other things. I've seen a couple restaraunts close that were doing okay a year or so ago.
 
We've been lucky here in Oklahoma seems that we are the least affected state with the down swing of the economy from published reports that I've read , housing and cost of living has always been less expensive here . So far pen sales have been just about normal with higher end pens moving well. Of course during the spring shows the cost of gas was 1/2 of what it is now and I took most of the summer off and will start the fall season in two weeks and we'll see if gas prices will have an effect on traffic and sales at shows.
 
economy

Hello,

I have definitely felt the economic decline. I sold a Helvie carving knife last week on ebay for $10.85. A year ago, I sold the exact same knife on ebay for $43.00. I have a friend that was forced to close his mens clothing store, and another in the restaurant business that fird his chefs and is back in the kitchen after 30 years in the business. Money is very tight right now here in the Chicago area, and I think it's going to get a lot tighter. Foreclosures are skyrocketing, and business' are failing fast. Not a pretty picture. I hope a new president can get us in the right direction. We need to start manufacturing things here in the USA again, oproviding jobs and income for working class people.

Dan
 
It's pretty bad here in Ohio. Lots of foreclosing. Not a lot a good jobs either. Rumor has it the local GM plant is closing and that will kill a lot of businesses. I work for a state prison and they had to lay off staff statewide. You would think that there would be job security at a prison, lol.
 
Tennessee seems to be doing okay.. we are on a fixed income and the gas prices hit us in the pocketbook pretty hard. Grocery prices seems to be climbing some too.

I've done only a few shows this summer, one was a total absolute bust, plus we got rain soaked trying to pack up.. my downtown market that I did last fall was down some this year.. I didn't sell any pens, but sold a few other items that made up the difference.
 
Most of my shows have been down 30-40%. But then again, we got quite a bit of rain during 14 of 16 shows and 14" of snow during another.
 
This is really interesting. Maybe the best way to do the pen business is by sticking with the high end market. My pens are already being sold at high prices, but I was thinking about creating a lower line and allowing more customers to buy my pens. I guess in Hawaii we are all accustomed to high gas prices. But I do notice that the shows now are a lot more inconsistent.
 
My best wholesale account was a high end art gallery. He had a big display of my pens and was selling them pretty good. He emailed last week and is closing up end of August. He said the only thing selling were my pens. Hate to lose this guy, he was selling as much as the rest of my wholesale dealers put together.
Looks like the economy is starting to suck! I also sell knives and old fishing stuff on Ebay and stuff is going for dimes on a dollar. Hardly worth listing stuff.
But Obama is gonna fix all that....yeah, right!
 
ozmandus said:
Tennessee seems to be doing okay.. we are on a fixed income and the gas prices hit us in the pocketbook pretty hard. Grocery prices seems to be climbing some too.
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Chuck you're lucky, I'm on a fixed income (actually it's kinda broke) as well, our side of the state is loosing a lot of jobs, same story about food prices though. I've only sold two pens last month, both good fountain pens, I get 100.00 for El Grandes for around here thats big money.
I think Memphis does a bit better. haven't tried though.
 
You need to find your specific niche. I had a record month last month, selling mostly medium cost stuff. The month prior was also a record. Every month this year is significantly better than last year even though the economy is in shambles. Somebody somewhere is buying stuff. You just need to find them and have the stuff they want. I have good luck with adwords from Google and pretty good placement on the search engines.
 
It doesn't get worse than Michigan! It's rock bottom here, everyone is leaving, nobody can sell their houses so people are abandoning them..highest unemployment in the country! This is terrible new, but for pen sales it's a bonus! High end kits, forget about it, they barely move, people are hording every penny. Low end pens, they aren't moving yet, but in another month they are sure to blow out even better than last year, which was economically almost as bad as it is now. People really appreciated that they can buy euro's and cigars for $30, because they can't afford to spend alot for people this christmas, and with a pen they get something of quality, uniqueness and a guaranteed use of the item. Instead of just selling one or two, people jump for 6 or 10 at a time to take care of their relatives and friends. I know many of my pens are underpriced, but I'm not quiting my day job, so I can afford to go for volume sales...I make a bit more money in the end, but have to work much more in labor to do so...but what else am I going to do, sit around and watch TV?
 
rjwolfe3 said:
It's pretty bad here in Ohio. Lots of foreclosing. Not a lot a good jobs either. Rumor has it the local GM plant is closing and that will kill a lot of businesses. I work for a state prison and they had to lay off staff statewide. You would think that there would be job security at a prison, lol.
Click to expand...

QFT, even the Ford casting plant by me will be shut down in just a few years. Companies like National City and Key bank have big presences here and are scaling back a lot. Luckily I work for a company making record profits (not oil or drugs) but even that doesn't get me a decent raise or bonus.:mad:

Luckily my wife is selling Tupperware and if the people have the $$ to buy that, they have the $ for my stuff. I've already been told by my wife that I need to really start making these cosmetic brushes as she could sell them in a hurry. I imagine most of my pens will just keep sitting around though. As long as I can make a buck.
 
Bruce, you produce an amazing product and I would rather have one of your rings than the $600 ti one I got as my wedding band. (That I can't even find anymore) I was just looking at your site today and wondering if I could take my quarterly bonus and apply it toward a custom designed $185 engraved ring. Heck, i'd buy a dozen of those rings if I had the $$ as they are so beautiful.
 
California is BAD. many people are being laid off. Bass Pro Shop is opening here in my home town of 60000 people and they had over 7500 applicants show up for their job fair.
 
We got the news at work today that we'll be working 4 days a week for 2 weeks and 3 days every 3rd week. Now for my take on the ecomomy, we're going to be paying a long time for all the excesses of people buying houses they shouldn't been allowed to, credit cards maxed out. So we the tax payers are going to have to bail everyone out, along with the banks that gave out these stud loans.

Jack
 
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