Consumer Metrics Moonshot

One interesting site I follow sometimes is the Consumer Metrics Institute data on Internet purchases of durable goods. When I first discovered Consumer Metrics, I thought their near real-time methodology was unique and might off deeper insight into what was happening in the broader economy. Over time, the demographics of Internet users turned out to be skewed in some ways and diverged from other broad indices. Still, whatever is going on now with Internet purchases is showing an incredible upward rate of change and deserves some brain cycles for reflection.

There are a couple of possibilities that come to mind. One, Internet consumers on a large scale decided to spend a lot of money online all at the same time because they all came into some new money (tax refunds, raises at work, inheritances). Maybe they all had appliances break over the summer and are replacing them. Anyway, that is one possible theme. A darker idea might be that they are nearly tapped out and decided to buy a bunch of new stuff on credit before declaring bankruptcy within the next six months. There could also be another explanation like the data feed is invalid for some reason or is reporting different information. Consumer Metrics itself seems to take the more positive view that this is a spending phenomenon that will reflect a stronger recovery in the government reported numbers in about 6 months.