This isn’t to say that luxury didn’t go through a bit of a rough time, just look at the financial statements for Saks, Neimans, LVMH, or many other luxury brands of the past year, but not one of those companies died nor did they go back and completely reinvent the wheel. Instead, luxury did exactly what every good brand does when times change: they adapted. They cut back on excess inventory, they refined their product offering to focus on items core to their brand and they continued to focus on the customer. Not every brand was as successful as others, but in just the past month, Hermes reported an 8.5% rise in sales year over year (09 v. 08), Burberry share prices have increased faster than any member of the 13-member Bloomberg European Fashion Index (up 29% in the past 6 months) and even Saks, who many thought was on its deathbed, trimmed its 4th quarter losses and is planning to “go on the offensive” in 2010.

I’m not saying that everything is fine and dandy – we still have a lot of progress we need to make before we fully pull out of this recession – but if I start to see the same analysts releasing “Nothing Can Stop Luxury Growth!” articles, I will be forced to treat them the same way I treat Glenn Beck (which something like a cross between completely ignoring him and a running a full out campaign against his entire existence).

Whether he approves of it or not, I think Paolo Nutini’s “New Shoes” (the song from which I stole the title of this article), should be retail’s theme song right now. For the past 9 months, we have had nothing but bad news, predictions of unmitigated doom and gloom about the end of retail as we know it (I even wrote a little rant about it here). True, times have not been good, but we are beginning to see a few shoots of green (as Chairman of the Fed Ben Bernanke likes to say) in the retail market – and no matter how small, I think they are worth celebrating.

Looking at retail results as a whole, the numbers are still down. In May, retail sales dropped about 4% (excluding Wal-Mart who has stopped giving monthly data – but has the ability to greatly shift the actual percentage). Of the top 30 retailers included, 22 showed more year-over-year drops. The last time we saw retail sales grow was in August. For some retailers, May marks 12+ months of consecutive losses. Abercrombie is down for 13 months in a row, Nordstrom for 12 months and Saks for 11 months. Sigh.
Luckily, there are a few rays of sunshine piercing the darkness.

For example:

• Gap is showing its best month in the last year and a half (I like to think it is because Range handles search for the GAP brands, but I digress)
• In the teen market, Aeropostale and Buckle are showing growth north of 10%
• Consumer confidence levels are overall on the rise

While the trend is clear that the retailers that are doing well are doing so on an economical side, remember there was a time not too long ago when even the discounters were losing ground (Ross was down September, October, November and January, but posted a 4% gain in May).

We are nowhere near being out of the woods just yet, but I am beginning to think of it this way: if we all just did what Paolo Nutini said, we would be in the clear… “put some new shoes on and suddenly everything is right.”

I suppose negative news is easier to sensationalize than positive news and we all know that sensationalism sells, especially in the news industry.

With all the bad news out there, we are entering a time when we all craving good news – a time when we all need a little positive news in our lives. We are entering what I like to call the “Infomercial Times” – a time when we are all willing to buy that ShamWow or Silver Bullet just because we all truly want something that works as well as the pitch man says it does and because we can get it at such a great price. We just need something positive to grab on to, which means it’s a salesman’s dream.

The same thing is starting to happen in the world of online. As marketers are forced to cut budgets and are continuing to see revenues dip, they are looking earnestly for a definite bright side. Enter a well-timed salesman with a shiny tool that fixes everything, or a vendor with a “can’t miss offer” and you end up with some poor decisions that produces a short term positive impact but long term damage to your brand and business model.

As we all do our best to fight the doom and gloom that seems to fill our days, please don’t fall victim to the infomercial pitchmen. There are no magical solutions, no guarantees and absolutely no short term fixes to solve all your problems. A ShamWow is still just a glorified towel. Snuggies are basically a blanket for suckers. Deal with the negativity just a bit longer, because when it passes, we can all celebrate the raises we got for not making stupid, rash decisions when times were tough.

True, we are not in the best of times – the retail world is hurting for sure. But the hysteria flooding the market right now does little but produces more doom and gloom and further skew everyone’s perception of what is really happening. Instead, I propose a two-pronged approach to handling this little “recession” we are in:

1. Celebrate the Good News – For all the bad news out there, there is a decent amount of good news as well. Retail stocks are on the rise as of late, March losses are less than expected and Jos. A Bank’s is even reporting a 15% jump in net profit last quarter. This by no means is an indication the recession is over and we can go back to our free-spending ways, but it is a sign that not everything is terrible. Celebrate these pieces of good news as signs that the end of the world is not the only possible outcome.
2. Don’t Cower in the Corner – Yes, times can be scary, but cutting budgets and cowering in the corner and crossing your fingers isn’t the solution. Instead, use this time to challenge your teams, your agencies and your partners to innovate and become more efficient. Use this time to improve your business – find ways to run smarter campaigns, improve your customer experience, make customers happier!

Yes, this approach may seem a little idealistic and is definitely easier to write than it is to execute, but think of it this way: would you rather be Chicken Little always worrying that the sky is falling or would you rather be the person that just happened to improve your company (both short term and long term) should the sky just happen to stay up in the sky?

I mean, really? This is what people want to spend tons of money on?