| At a time when sales of products across | | | | several factors. |
| industries are struggling to keep up with their past | | | | The first is of course the holiday season and |
| records, some industries such as personal care | | | | festivities, when people spend on gifts, |
| products appear to have shown resilience despite | | | | decorations, partying, etc. Experts think that this |
| hostile economic trends. | | | | Christmas many people bought skin and personal |
| A look at the U.S. Department of Commerce | | | | care products as cheaper alternatives for more |
| stats show that most industries are up against | | | | expensive gift items. Further, many retailers came |
| some really rough weather. The whole of the | | | | up with huge and attractive discounts, which |
| industry recorded a decline of 3.1% in sales when | | | | almost forced consumers to spend on personal |
| compared to the numbers from last year. And if | | | | care items. Whatever the reasons, in the end all |
| you consider the retail sales figures alone then | | | | of it did boost the sales. |
| December of 2008 has been pretty bad with the | | | | World over, the performance of different retail |
| sales falling by 2.7% to US $343.2 billion. These | | | | sectors has been pretty dismal. For instance, |
| numbers are pretty scary because they are | | | | according to the British Retail Consortium statistics |
| worst ever since the early 1990s. | | | | the month of December 2008 has been the |
| Despite the falling retail sales figures the personal | | | | worst in the past 14 years, with the sales |
| care products registered a rise in sales of 5.65% | | | | declining by 3.3 percent when compared to the |
| to US $20.92 billion for December 2008, when | | | | activities of the previous year. |
| compared with the December 2007 data. | | | | All in all the personal care industry sales in the US |
| Some reasons behind the rise | | | | fared better than most other industries and also |
| At the same time experts attribute the increase | | | | it's own kind, when pitted against the sales data |
| in sales activity for personal care products to | | | | from other parts of the world such as the UK. |