Howard Davidowitz Less Quotations

Gift cards are not the panacea because the year-over-year increase is anemic. Because the markdowns in January will be more than last year, retailers will see less dollar impact of additional sales from gift cards compared to last year.

Kmart said it closed its worst performing stores because it couldn't maintain inventory once its vendors cut themselves off. Now that the stores are shuttered and inventory is up, Kmart is still doing less business than before. The company is still losing money and market share. I'm not sure the company can get past Christmas.

We had moderate growth in income but we're borrowing our brains out. The most concerning thing is that the level of savings is at less than one percent of personal income,

SARS has not stopped factories from rolling out products in China, ... The only effect it's had on U.S. businesses is that it has led to fewer visits from buyers to the region. So there have been less face-to-face meetings between buyers and suppliers, but companies have gotten around that by teleconferencing.

Other holidays have become less important. Halloween is the exception. It has become more important.