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Businesses Say Consumers' Frugality Is Driving Their Thinking

A raft of Journal reporters led by Julie Jargon in Chicago, Pui-Wing Tam in San Francisco and Ellen Byron in New York talked to marketers across the country and determined that grimness is tightening its grip on consumers' wallets despite glimmering rays of recovery. They are responding accordingly by knocking prices down or, at worst, holding them where they are.

Bargain-hunting remains the operative shopping mode, and even venues that tend to fare better in recessions -- such as grocery stores, which pick up business from restaurants as people eat in -- are finding that margins are tight. "Customers are buying more of what they need and less of what they want," says Kroger COO Rodney McMullen.

All of which explains the headline on Sara Zucker's post in Brandchannel this morning: "As Aspirational Market Withers, Luxury Brands Target The Actual Wealthy." As well as this one in the Los Angeles Times: "More Americans Are Planning On Regifting, Poll Finds." (The actual number is 36%, for the curious.) And this one on top of a story by Eve Mitchell in the San Jose Mercury News, as well: "Layaway Makes A Return As Stores Court Strapped Consumers."

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