We all see the market grasping for some piece of news that will hopefully signal a market direction or at least a short term move. The bad news seems to be mounting not only in the US but also in the world economies. Mounting debt is still plaguing a recovery, while at the same time putting the inflation watchers on alert.
What we really need to look at is the next secular shift in the consumer marketplace. A secular shift is a long term trend that changes the way we live and/or readjusts our mindsets. There have been massive secular shifts over the last hundred years such as the telegraph/telephone, cars, planes, Internet, etc. These secular shifts generally have a major impact on the way we live our lives as well as being a tremendous economic engine for driving wealth.
The last 18 months have arguably proven the toughest since the Great Depression but there have been areas of robust growth. One of the major areas of growth has been in the LOHAS space. What is LOHAS? LOHAS is a term that stands for “Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability”. Sounds like some real new age moniker for the yoga set, but that would be far from the actual truth. As it stands, the LOHAS marketplace cuts a wide swath through products and services and is growing substantially. An almost unknown segment of the market 15 years ago, it has evolved into a $200 billion + a year market that encompasses goods and services geared toward the consumer. Generally, business to business companies and their transactions are not included in the calculation of market size.
The dynamics of the LOHAS market, which are really driven by a whole new consumer mindset of sustainability and peak resource theory, has propelled the economic growth of
