{"id":773910,"date":"2013-05-01T09:26:47","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T16:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/05\/01\/economy-consumer-spending-show-mixed-signs-for-retailers\/"},"modified":"2013-05-10T03:23:14","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T10:23:14","slug":"economy-consumer-spending-show-mixed-signs-for-retailers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/05\/01\/economy-consumer-spending-show-mixed-signs-for-retailers\/","title":{"rendered":"Economy, consumer spending show mixed signs for retailers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The road to full economic recovery has been filled with ups and downs, and the American <a href=\"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/Solutions\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"dnautolink\">retail industry<\/a> is one sector that has certainly felt these effects. The last months of 2012 and the first months of this year have been giving businesses a hazy picture of how long it will take until conditions fully improve.<\/p>\n<p>According to Bloomberg, the latest data from the Commerce Department revealed that the nation&#039;s economy had solid growth during 2013&#039;s first quarter, especially when compared to the fourth quarter of last year. Gross domestic product increased at a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-04-26\/economy-in-u-s-grows-at-faster-pace-as-consumers-boost-spending.html\" target=\"_blank\">2.5 percent annual rate<\/a>&nbsp;during the first three months of 2013, significantly surpassing the previous quarter&#039;s figure of 0.4 percent. The statistics also included the fact that consumer spending jumped&nbsp;at the start of this year, rising 3.2 percent from 2012&#039;s fourth quarter. The source noted this marked the biggest growth in consumer spending since the last quarter of 2010.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, recent research of Americans&#039; sentiment toward the economy dropped in April, providing a confusing look into the ongoing recovery. In a separate article, Bloomberg reports that the Thomson Reuters\/University of Michigan <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-04-26\/michigan-consumer-sentiment-fell-to-76-4-in-april-from-78-6.html\" target=\"_blank\">consumer sentiment index fell<\/a> from 78.6 in March to 76.4 for this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The road to full economic recovery has been filled with ups and downs, and the American retail industry is one sector that has certainly felt these effects. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/05\/01\/economy-consumer-spending-show-mixed-signs-for-retailers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":773911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-773910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retail-customer-business-intelligence"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}