The survey investigating consumer preferences for outdoor recreation and associated wildlife sightings discussed last week also included a discrete choice experiment.

Spring has sprung and many people are itching to get outdoors after being cooped up all winter long.

As the wise Sheldon Cooper once said (in Season 2, Episode 19), “Change is never fine. They say it is, but it’s not.”

The emergence of social media has created an environment of flash publicity. Products and companies can become glorified or vilified faster than we can remember to check our email.

We have a long, admittedly odd, history of learning from rodents here on Consumer Corner.

A few weeks ago, we tackled the Young Sheldon inspired philosophical question of “Why does everybody knowing something make it right?”

Recall in 2020 I (Nicole) suggested that we redefine the standards on what looking ‘awful’ means in order to avoid admitting that my then Zoom-chic self was really falling short of any pre-Covid-era standards.

The challenge with consumers is that they aren’t just walking around as these mythical one-dimensional consumer-bots. Instead, they are walking around as thinking, feeling and ever-changing human beings.

Spending on casual dining restaurants has been increasing during recent years. In the samples from our CFDAS Database, the aggregate netspends on casual dining in billions $ from 2016-2022 were 18.9, 19.9, 22.7, 33.9, 43.3, 44.7, and 45.2.  Those values represent increases annually from 2017 to 2022 of 5%, 14%, 49%, 28%, 3%, and 1%.