Odds are good that your average customer is feeling the effects of the recession, and odds are good that you’ve made some sort of response in terms of advertising or price adjustments.  But if you want have a better idea of what’s happened (and thus what kind of reaction is appropriate), new data from Mint should help.

Mint is a personal finance site that helps 900,000 people keep track of their money.  Its user base is a little younger, more masculine, and less wealthy than the typical American, but falls roughly in line with norm.  Also, the fact that Mint’s users are all people who are fond of an online finance site makes its info pretty appropriate for the eCommerce crowd.

So on to the statistics.  In an article for TechCrunch, Mint’s CEO and founder, Aaron Patzer, wrote, “Looking by category from January to November, we see greater than 20% declines in entertainment (-22%), Home - including furnishings, services, and home improvement (-21%), gas/fuel (-32%), and travel (-24%).  Spending also declined in food, shopping, and bills/utilities, with the only increase being spending on financial advisors as people look for help during uncertain times.”

Then, “From August to December, the average savings account was halved to $5,500.  Fortunately, credit card debt remained roughly constant, but investments declined by 24%, while loans (mortgage, HELOC, student loans, and personal loans) increased by 11%.”

That’s what’s happened to the people your company is probably targeting, then.  Understanding their situation will hopefully lead to increased sales.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 11:08 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About the Author: Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.