hear’s a breakdown of the provided text, focusing on the key points and arguments:
Main Argument: global retail sales are weakening, but this isn’t necessarily due to a complete collapse in consumer spending. Instead, consumer behaviour is shifting from traditional goods to experiences and higher-quality products, a trend driven by globalization and informatization.
Key Points:
weakening Retail Sales:
China’s retail sales growth has significantly slowed from over 10% pre-COVID to around 3%.
US retail sales growth is also around 3% year-on-year.
Southeast Asian countries (like indonesia) are seeing similar growth rates of around 3%.
Korea’s retail sales indicators are also showing serious slowdowns.
Causes for Weakening Retail Sales:
Large-scale Liquidity Supply Post-COVID: This led to inflation, devaluing money. Despite this, monetary policy in many countries (including the US Fed) remains expansionary or hasn’t tightened sufficiently.
Changes in the Employment Environment:
“Lifetime jobs” are disappearing. Platform-based part-time employment (food delivery, YouTube creators) has increased.
Companies are increasingly using outsourcing for functions like marketing, design, and HR, leading to lower employment stability. This instability makes it difficult for individuals to predict future cash flow, impacting spending confidence.
Changes in Consumer Consumption Patterns:
Shift from Quantity to Quality/experience: Consumers are no longer focused on buying large quantities of items or increasing car ownership. they are also not shopping more frequently in traditional retail settings.
Focus on Experiences: Spending is shifting towards experiences like overseas travel,unique lodging in Korea,and activities like skinning and skydiving.
Preference for High-Quality Products: Consumers are opting for one or two high-quality items over multiple low-priced ones. Globalization and Shared Consumer Culture:
These consumption trends (experience-oriented, preference for quality) are not isolated to one region but are common across major consumers like the US and China.
Emerging market consumers are increasingly mirroring the mass market trends of developed countries.
This convergence is attributed to informatization and globalization.
Structural and Continuous Change:
The shift towards experience-oriented consumption and preference for high-quality products is not a temporary fad but a basic, ongoing change. This is supported by the continued growth in sectors like travel, hotels, cosmetics, food (with proven functionality/stability), and established luxury brands.
In essence, the author argues that while traditional retail sales figures might look concerning, the underlying consumer desire to spend is still present. However, the way* consumers are spending has evolved, moving away from accumulating material goods towards investing in experiences and premium products.
