"The influence of high raw material prices, rising inflation rates, falling purchasing power and tight capital markets are likely to prevent a significant revival from taking place in the coming months," the company said.
"What we have been seeing, particularly because of the downturn, is consumers are holding on to their money and buying closer to when they are actually going to need the product, so fall purchases appear to have been delayed," John Long, a retail strategist at Kurt Salmon Associates, said.
But because Japanese prices are broadly falling, the purchasing power of the yen is rising.
FAVORITE FALL PURCHASE A MaxMara cable-knit fisherman sweater that I'm obsessed with.
His big fall purchase: 20 low-bush blueberry plants -- more than half off at his local nursery -- that he hopes will create a lush carpet effect under the dogwood trees in his yard come spring.
Transfer payments like Medicare and Social Security are rising (although unemployment benefits are falling), but government purchases of stuff — mostly at the state and local level, where the stuff in question includes hiring schoolteachers — has been in fairly rapid decline.
As these shoppers' incomes have fallen, their purchasing habits have changed.
As the costs of wind and solar energy continue to fall, corporate purchasing of clean energy is reaching new heights, creating a virtuous cycle where demand drives scale, which lowers prices, which then spurs more demand.
