US Consumer Credit

Economists forecast consumer borrowing increased $13.5 billion in April from March, according to a survey by FactSet. The Federal Reserve will release the report at 3 p.m. EDT Friday.

In March, consumers increased their borrowing by $8 billion from February to a seasonally adjusted $2.81 trillion. While that was a record high level for borrowing, the March increase was the smallest in eight months. And nearly all of the gain was in a category that measures auto and student loans.

Consumers barely increased their credit card debt, continuing a trend of resisting high-interest debt that began during the Great Recession. Economists believe consumers will continue to resist their plastic this year, in part because of higher Social Security taxes have reduced most paychecks. They are also more cautious because job growth, while steady and solid, is still not strong enough to rapidly lower the unemployment rate.

The credit report doesn't separate auto loans from student loans. But according to quarterly data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan debt has been the biggest driver of borrowing since the recession ended in June 2009. Student loans reached $986 billion in the first three months of this year. That's up from $675 billion in the second quarter of 2009.

Consumers increased their spending from January through March at the fastest pace in more than two years. However, they had to trim the pace of their savings to finance their purchases. After-tax income dropped at an annual rate of 7.5 percent in the first quarter. That drop reflected in part the increase in Social Security taxes that took effect on Jan. 1.

Economists are hoping that hiring will remain solid and counter some of the drag from the tax increase and federal spending cut that began on March 1.

The overall economy grew at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the January-March quarter. The expectation is that growth is slowing in the April-June quarter to around 2 percent.

The Federal Reserve's borrowing report covers auto loans, student loans and credit cards. It excludes mortgages, home equity loans and other loans tied to real estate.

In order to compete with retail giants during the holiday season, it is important to stand out from the crowd with your product or marketing strategy. One point that Custom Wooden Cards identified is that shelves in stores have become over-saturated with plastic gift cards. One way to stand out with product differentiation could include creating a custom shaped wood gift card, a laser engraved wood gift card, or a wood gift card.

In terms of marketing strategies, it could be important to reflect an eco-friendly image to consumers. According to The 2006 Cone Millennial Cause Study, 74% of consumers are more likely to pay attention to a company’s message when they see that the company is very committed to a cause, such as being environmentally conscious. Consumers like to see passion, and many of them like to see passion in a cause that can better the planet.

In terms of online advertising strategies, it has been proven that buzz words like "free shipping" perform much better than percent off discounts. Instead of offering percent off discounts, offer free shipping to help increase sales around the holiday season.

I'm a fan of Harmonix, to be perfectly clear. When I first purchased an Xbox 360 way back when, one of the earliest titles in my collection was "Guitar Hero 2," and boy did I play that thing until the buttons on my fake guitar got stuck, making the experience rather difficult. When "Rock Band" came along, I didn't buy it because it was released on the same day as the original "Mass Effect" — a game I was legally obliged to purchase — and also because my bank account was rather empty, and I didn't have enough room on my credit card to drop $200 on more plastic instruments.

And then I got a Kinect sensor, and to date I have enjoyed only one series of games on it: "Dance Central." I still think that the only reason to have this generation of Kinect is so you can play "Dance Central," as I didn't find any of my other Kinect experiences — be them full-motion games like "Rise of Nightmares," which were too exhausting and awkward for me to really enjoy, or standard controller games with voice commands like "Mass Effect 3," which were just dumb — worth any sort of investment. But I like dancing, and Kinect made it possible for there to be a dancing game that wasn't utterly stupid. Harmonix definitely delivered there.

All that aside, I was wary of the studio's impending announcement of a new game that was related to neither "Rock Band" nor "Dance Central." We'd known for a while that it was working on something new, and last year it had been reportedly seeking a "combat designer" to add to the team, which to me indicated it was branching beyond music. That scared me, frankly. "Harmonix" is not the full name of the studio, after all; it is actually called Harmonix Music. The possibility that they were working on a non-music property just seemed weird.

And so in the lead-up to its announcement of this new game Tuesday morning, I was pretty skeptical. I didn't really know what to expect, and given the evidence it might be straying outside its wheelhouse, I was curious but not necessarily optimistic. Bah, everyone told me. It's gonna be awesome, whatever it is, they said. I wasn't convinced.Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com for more information.