• by October 19, 2001

The tragic events of September 11 have created turmoil for business markets in the U.S. However, a new study from BIGresearch of more than 5,100 respondents, conducted between September 28th and October 7th, appears to have captured the attitudes, intentions and actions of consumers and it's not all bad. In fact, many of the findings have proven out each day as sales figures for September are disclosed.

"It looks like the 5,100+ consumers in the study provided an accurate picture on the national state of mind since September 11 including purchase intentions going forward", said Joe Pilotta, Ph.D., VP of Research for BIGresearch.

Some key advance economic warnings that were made available on October 4th to BIGresearch clients were:

* 16.5% of people said they planned on buying stocks over the next 3 months while only 3% said they were going to sell. This perspective on the stock market has been evidenced with the rebound in stock market indexes to pre-September 11 levels.

* 18.5% of the people said they planned on buying a car over the next 6 months. This signaled a potential for an increase in auto sales, which in fact have increased since September 11.

* Two of the top retail categories consumers said they planned on spending less at were department stores and upscale specialty stores while discounters would fare much better. Since September 11, retailers' performance has been erratic with apparel and department stores suffering the most while many discounters are thriving.

* Other findings such as the fact that 31% of the respondents said they would spend less for the upcoming holidays and almost 70% said they would spend the same or more have been replicated by other studies issued after October 7th.

* Consumers in the study also said they would spend more on groceries and less eating out and these numbers were confirmed by the Commerce Department's September retail report.

The Consumer Intentions and Actions Study was the first of what will be a monthly survey designed to help retailers, manufacturers, financial institutions and automakers track and forecast the ever-changing consumer market with a syndicated research product.