Retail Sales Plummet

Wall Street Journal ^ | DECEMBER 26, 2008 | ANN ZIMMERMAN, JENNIFER SARANOW and MIGUEL BUSTILLO

[blam]

"You pay property taxes?"

Yup. They went up 40% last year. I figure that's how they'll 'get' me, lol. They'll keep raising them till I can't pay and then tell me to get off their property.

[rb22982]

You do realize that the majority of your costs are fairly fixed? Leases, IT support, corporate, etc. It doesn't scale like you think it does. It's not *my* business that I work for but we're doing just fine--thanks for asking.

You are correct that you can cut inventory in time but most of these retailers did not as the holiday stuff is usually ordered 3-6 months in advance. You can cut back on payroll some. There are things that you can do but an 8% cut in revenue does not mean you will come close to maintaining the same margin. There is an article out today that they think 25% of retailers will go into Bankrupcty next year.