Holiday retail outlook - "Worst in two decades"

Just listened to   David Brennan, professor of marketing for the University of St.

Thomas Opus College of Business and co-director of its Institute for

Retailing Excellence, discuss his annual Twin Cities holiday retail outlook survey.

For such an academic guy, he laid it out pretty straight:

"This is going to be the bleakest holiday spending season  we’ve seen since we started conducting  the survery in 2002."

Anticipated per household spending dropped by 11 percent from 2007. That means people are saying their household will spend around $663 compared to $751 in 2007.

That means the total holiday "spend" for the Twin Cities metro area will drop by $102 million.

59% of the 659 people surveyed said they will be spending a little or a lot less than last year.

In 2007, 39% of people answered that question yes.

Here's the order of most popular categories for holiday purchases - all of which declined from 2007:

Books

gift certificates

clothing

cash

toys/hobby

entertainment

sporting goods

furniture/ home furnishings

consumer electronics

video game related

computer related

jewelry

"Obviously, the consumer is in a gloomy mood..."

I'll have more on this in print Thursday.