Just heard on the news tonight that American Express is actually offering $300 to certain card holders who agree to voluntarily cancel their accounts. That just shows how bad the economy is and perhaps how bad American Express is hurting..

Anticipating a really bad month, we decided to run a sale for the month on overstocked merchandise. The result has been a huge increase in not only sales of DVD's but also memberships. I think that shows that consumers still have money to spend on their adult pleasures but that they are just tighter with that money. The reason for the increase in memberships is that members get an additional 20% off, even on sales merchandise.

The really interesting aspect of this sale is that we've seen a huge increase of consumers using their American Express cards as opposed to VISA or Mastercard. Usually American Express usage is a very low percentage of the total credit card sales. Not this month. Not sure what that is telling me but I'm assuming that part of it is that the customers have maxed out their VISA's and Mastercard's but since AE has to paid each month, they are using it to take advantage of the sale.

Bill