The Challenges of apparel retail

With the economic recession everything in our economy has paused. I know from experience working at Banana Republic in Charlotte for the past year that a year ago sales were stable and we met our goals each month with banana cards and the merchandise sale was above average. However when I went back a few weeks ago to work they had to let people go and we had not made our monthly goals since I had left. I know that its not only Banana Republic that is suffering from this economic recession. That is one challenge I see of apparel retail. Another one that I have noticed from working in the apparel retail business is that from the end of January to about March there are no customers. During this time I was not scheduled to work which put a damper on my income. I know others in the industry were also tight on cash because of the decline in business. The apparel retail industry will never go out of business but it is constantly fluctuating. These challenges that I mentioned are from my history working at Banana Republic and the things I have noticed throughout my year as an employer there.