In Response to Doug

Doug asked the following questions: What factors most heavily influence your impulse buying? Do you think companies can predict impulse buying, if so how? When it comes to buying stuff for myself, I am usually good about what I spend because I like to keep myself on a strict budget. Sometimes I just can't help myself though, if I see a great deal on DVDs, a Wii game, books, etc... I just have to buy them without even putting much thought into it. I think this happens to a lot of people, you go into a store expecting to buy the three things on your list and you walk out with ten more items than you had planned on. For the rest of your week, you can't spend any more money because of your impulse buying. The factor that influences my buying would definitely be my mood. If I'm in a great mood, I won't mind spending an extra 20 dollars for something that I consider to be a great deal. If I'm not in a good mood, then I won't be as willing to spend an extra 20 dollars because I will see it as a waste of money. I think that malls definitely benefit from people's moods because that is where a lot of shopping gets done. Generally, when someone is happier they are going to spend more money because they aren't thinking negatively when it comes to money. I think a lot of companies predict this happening, especially at malls. They plan to have amazing sales on things that aren't generally on sale, and it catches the eyes of so many people who think wow, I'd be crazy to pass that up. They plan to suck people in right away by having their sale signs out or another catchy sign, and it definitely works. The candy and soda companies have it made because their stuff is always at the checkout when people are leaving. I used to work at Shaws and I can't even tell you the number of people that would throw a candy bar in or a soda because they were looking at it and couldn't even resist it any longer. Do you think things through before buying impulsively or do you just buy it before you change your mind?

Summer Job Outlook

As many college students head home for the summer they will all be looking for one thing; a summer job. Unfortunately for those students, this summer teens and young adults are going to have a rough time landing a job. This summer, they are competing against people that are experienced and laid off professionals, who are all applying for the same jobs. Shawn Boyer, CEO of SnagAJob.com said it's not a summer to be picky about what type of work you do. If you find a job take it as soon as you can before someone else comes in and takes it away from you. The only advantage some teens may have over experienced professionals is that the experienced workers have too much experience, and the store that's thinking about hiring them might be scared to hire them for only a couple months until they find something better.

Last summer, 4.8 million young Americans worked in the leisure and hospitality industry. Some of these places include theme parks, hotels and restaurants. The other popular industries were in retail (3.9 million workers) and in education or health services (2.1 million workers). The number of workers came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The places that usually employ the teens and college students are also the places that are looking to cut back on spending because they have been hit so hard by the recession. The lack of cash coming in means they don't need quite so many workers because there won't be hundreds of people at Six Flags at a time. Only 29% of hiring managers intend to hire the same amount of workers as they did last year and 18% of hiring managers expect to hire fewer workers this summer. People are hopeful that this is as bad as everything will get, and that we are slowly recovering and next summer will be better as far as summer jobs goes. If you've been looking for a job, have you noticed how hard it is to find one?