What happens after the recession ends?
Prof. Ken Wong.
Professor Ken Wong, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, has an idea for the industry. Speaking at today’s PMA Canada Expo, he notes females between the ages of 12 and 19 are the dominant cellphone texters. Guys of the same age don’t text nearly as much. So, he suggests, if we can get males in that age bracket to see picture-taking as machismo, we can “blow the doors off volume.”
Wong’s comment was made in the context of the effect of the recession on consumer spending, and how price-cutting effects the bottom line. He suggested a 1-percent price cut will need a 1.4 percent cut in costs for the business just to hold steady. A 1 percent price cut will require a 3.4 percent increase in volume just to stand pat. If part of that cost cutting involves staff reductions, quality of service suffers and the ability to maintain prices drops.
This recession, he says, is a result of lack of confidence, with consumers gripping their money even tighter than before. Is the recovery here? “We don’t know,” because we haven’t figured out a way to recapture consumer confidence.
“There is no recovery if there is no confidence, even if the money is there.”
Wong says not to believe the doomsayers. “Now is the time for the consumer to relearn why picture-taking is important.”
The industry, he says, needs to make the consumer realize the value in picture-taking, and for the industry to make the consumer realize he or she is not like everyone else, that they need products with different features than those being offered by the big box stores, and they can get service from the specialty stores.
Consumers, says Wong, will pay for those little differences.
