Industry Indicator
Here you will find up-to-date industry statistics, letting you in on the state of the industry a full month earlier than our print publication.
Changes in the Numbers
by David Hachmeister
There were big changes in direction for our Indicator numbers. We were actually on track for a very good year in 2008. Before the last quarter, sales were headed for a solid gain of more than 6 percent.
As you can see below, although sales were still up for the year, the last quarter's decline definitely cut into the gain. Sales in November seem to have been especially bleak.
On the plus side, the small shops' sales were up for the second month in a row! They rose almost 28 percent. A couple of shops had great months.
Please also notice that our seasonality factors and statistics for last year changed as we made accommodations for changes in our membership. We do this in January in any year we have changes in membership. Although this changes the base year, in this case 2008, it does allow an apples-to-apples comparison of the previous period with sales from the same manufacturers. If we did not do this, a big new member would artificially bump up the sales average and make things appear better (less bad?) than they really are.
Annual Comparison 2007-2008
2007 Sales: $13,324,036
2008 Sales: $13,701,566
Up 2.8% for 2008
Last Quarter Comparison 2007-2008
2007: $3,477,589
2008: $3,184,860
Down 8.4% in last quarter of 2008
January sales continued the dreary but not catastrophic trend. Sales for stamps fell as did sales for other products. All the drops were in the middle single digits. Not good, but not like we are reading about elsewhere. Hang in there!
Click each graph for a larger view.
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