Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, says people's new spending patterns are forcing companies to change the kinds of products they sell and tweak their marketing to appeal to cost-conscious shoppers.
She points to the last big recession of the early 1990s that helped trigger a fundamental shift in retailing as affluent shoppers started buying at discounters as well as upscale stores.
Radtke, 31, who holds down two jobs - at a veterinarian's office and at a flower shop - recently picked up shoe glue to fix the soles of her worn sneakers.
She is buying store-label soups and crackers and bought a bike for her commute after not having ridden one for five years.
"We weren't big spenders, but now we are watching our money more," said Radtke, a Wisconsin resident, whose husband works in construction.
"Even if I fell into a pile of money, I still wouldn't be spending a lot."
According to a survey released last week by market research company Nielsen Co., which tracks consumer habits, about two-thirds, or 63 percent, of consumers are cutting spending due to rising gas prices, up 18 percentage points from a year ago.
According to the study, which queried nearly 50,000 US consumers by e-mail during the first week of June, 78 percent of them are combining shopping trips and 52 percent are eating out less often.
Consumers are also cutting more coupons, doing more of their shopping at supercenters and buying less expensive brands, the survey found.
A rebounding economy may let some consumers revert to their old ways - like people who switched to smaller cars when times were hard in the 1970s but flocked to sport utility vehicles when gas got cheap again.
