Business is not a sinking ship for everywhere

While the recent recession has left a huge portions of businesses all across the nation scrambling and struggling to make it out alive, according to the time.com article "Business Bucking the Recession," there are six businesses that are still booming, or at least seeing positive growth and not tanking.
The first one, to my surprise, is cosmetic procedures. The article says that the less expensive operations such as Botox injections, chemical peels and fillers were 73% more popular in the last quarter of 2008 than in 2007. Apparently, no matter how depressing times are, women still want to look good. The more expensive procedures like nose jobs and breast augmentations have declined, however. Another business that seems to be smooth sailing is herbal medicine. With so many people losing jobs, they have also lost health insurance and are finding new ways to stay healthy. Multivitamins, cleansing products, and fiber supplements have also been very popular.

Not surprisingly at all, microbreweries also made the list. In typical American fashion, when times are hard, alcohol consumption is up. Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, was quoted as saying "Beer is recession resistant." In the same vein, the candy business is also doing extremely well. Hershey and Cadbury both report positive sales and have optimistic outlooks for 2009. Consumers, in addition to looking good, also like to spoil themselves with sweet and cheap delights.

Another thriving business mentioned was lottery tickets. The Massachusetts lottery boosted sales of $4.7 billion last year, up from $4.4 billion from the previous year. And lastly, strangly, exotic travel made the list. The Middle East and Africa are experiencing much popularity, with travel up 11 and 5 percent in 2008.


This article was enlightening to me because it wasn't about retail at all really and made me think about businesses outside of what we normally discuss in class. Some of them made perfect sense to me and others left me completely perplexed, but now I have an idea of the types of places that may be hiring when it's time for me to graduate, and that's of course highly beneficial.





Source: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1879548_1879547,00.html