The Brexit vote could hit British retail hard. Even before the vote itself, retailers reported sales had slowed because consumers wanted to hold onto their money because of the uncertainty.

Mail Online article

Now we know the result, there is even more uncertainty as it is clear that the people running the Leave Campaign had misled the public over how easy it would be to get new trade deals. The EU have said that the UK cannot join the Single Market without also having freedom of movement, which means if the government want to meet pledges on reducing immigration, the UK cannot join the Single Market.

When consumers are less likely to spend money, then direct marketing is a good way to ensure that any marketing money you spent has the best chance of getting a return on investment, because the responses are measurable. And whenever the economy takes a turn downwards, mail order sales tend to increase. No-one is completely sure why, but it is probably because mail order and online purchases have easy returns for unwanted items and are on credit cards.

So if you are a retailer and haven’t tried direct marketing, a downturn is actually a good time to test the idea.