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Consumer Spending Doesn’t Dictate Crafts Store Sales Growth

The following two graphs show that consumer spending and comparable-store crafts chain sales do not go up and down together. In the first graph, consumer spending (including inflation) has grown at 4% to 7% annually for the past 13 years, while comparable stores at three crafts chains have had their annual growth fluctuate between -10% and +7% in that same period. Technically, the average correlation between each store’s sales growth and consumer spending growth is -0.29. In the second graph, comparable-store crafts chain sales grew in parallel with consumer spending from 1994 to 2004, and then contracted from 2005 to 2007.

Data sources: Michaels, Jo-Ann, and A.C. Moore 10-K annual report filings; U.S. Dept. of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.