Britt Beemer Consumer Quotations

More Americans are waiting to the end to shop for Christmas than any other time in the last 10 years. The consumer was never excited about anything that they saw this Christmas.

I think the big story of Christmas will be this shift in consumer attitudes where people felt that stores gouged them with their pricing strategy. The 30 to 40 percent discounts this year instead of the 50 to 70 percent off last year will help profits but will hurt customer loyalty in the long term.

Our research on holiday gift returns shows that it's only three percent of Americans who are real jerks and they indulge in consumer fraud and return abuse. The rest of us have to deal with the consequences.

This summer, the consumer was cautious, with all the uncertainty going on in the country. But almost all of those worries are gone, and that is good news at the start of the holiday season.

The consumer that's going to Wal-Mart is going to be very price-driven. The person who goes to one of these stores may be very high-tech-driven.