The idea of certain industries or products being “recession-proof” is interesting to me. Maybe six months ago some of those claims were valid, but in the current state we are in, I think it’s fairly safe to say that everyone is affected by the recession and very few industries are thriving. Yet, I continue to stumble upon the term in conjunction with niche markets. For instance, today I was flipping through the latest issue of New York Magazine (which has a very intriguing Recession in New York feature, by the way) and I saw a story about the cancellation of this spring’s Pet Fashion Week.

The text reads: “The fall event has been running every August since 2004. “There was a real boom … 2006 until this summer,” says show coordinator Derek DiFante. “Now it seems it’s tapered off a bit.” …  But he’s still confident that the luxury pet market, home to “the $1,000 coats or $2,000 fragrances” is “recessionproof.”

There was a previously held notion that sex, alcohol, and gambling are perhaps the only markets that can withstand a recession. However, reports indicate that even alcohol sales are down. According to an Associated Press story The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States reported by that liquor sales have seen a 2.8 percent growth rate, which is down from the 6 percent average annual growth rate. The story refers to the liquor industry as perhaps “recession resilient” rather than “recession proof.” Likewise, MSNBC recently reported that the adult entertainment industry seems to be facing a slump. [In the February "CRM in a Recession" issue, we covered Playboy's budget cuts and internal reshaping due to economic pressures.] The story mentions that Larry Flynt, head of the Hustler empire, and Joe Francis, the man behind the “Girls Gone Wild” series, requested a $5 billion bailout from Congress. Doesn’t sound all too recession-proof to me.

Valentine’s Day is approaching — a day when Americans typically go overboard with discretionary spending. According to a research by Los Angeles-based market-research firm IBISWorld, which based its numbers on projections from retailers’ and manufacturers’ industry organizations, holiday spending will lag 4.8 percent behind 2008′s numbers. IBISWorld reports that Americans are expected to spend $4.5 billion on clothing and intimate apparel as gifts for the Feb. 14 holiday this year — 6.7 percent less than they spent on such items for Valentine’s Day in 2008.

To delve more into the topic of Valentine’s Day spending, I got back in touch with John Squire, the chief strategy officer at Coremetrics, with whom I spoke about Black Friday predictions back in November. Not surprisingly, Squire shares that e-commerce activity for Valentine’s Day sales is less than joyful. Coremetrics, the Web analytics provider, reports that people are losing interest in online retail even more than before. In fact, the amount of time shoppers spend on a given site is down 20 percent from last year. Even more staggering is the number of click-throughs to detailed product pages is down 17 percent in the first week of February when compared to last year — It’s down 50 percent in a couple of sectors. Squire says that February 11 is typically a day when shoppers pick up the pace with Valentine’s Day shopping — but it was not even noticeable this time around. He does note, however, that the intimate apparel retail sector seems to be faring okay (not great). The rate is flat, not growing, but perhaps this indicates that recession or not, buying lingerie on Valentine’s Day is a locked-in tradition for some. The Valentine’s Day predictions seem to be on par with what we have generally been seeing from the retail industry. People just aren’t spending money like they used to. But on the bright side, there’s an old saying that goes: “Love don’t cost a thing.” (I gagged a little a lot while writing that.)