The French Source Factory Store sells products from France.

MIDDLETOWN — The current economic downturn affects businesses across the country in different ways, but perhaps most apparently the consumer goods companies reliant on the spending habits of everyday Americans.

Those habits have changed, at least temporarily, and so have the fortunes of consumer goods companies.

Discounters are generally having a better time of it than luxury goods companies.

“You have to split the luxury market in half,” said Ira Kalish, director of consumer business research for finance consultant Deloitte Research.

There are “high end” luxury consumers for whom a recession is not much more than an annoyance, and “low end” luxury consumers, typically referred to as “aspirational” buyers.

“That consumer has been hurt,” Kalish said of the latter group.

Retailers that cater to aspirational consumers, such as Coach and Polo Ralph Lauren, have a difficult year ahead of them, according to analysts and surveys.

A recent study conducted by Baltimore, Md.-based marketing firm Vertis Communications showed that 91 percent of Americans will change their buying habits this year, with 60 percent saying they plan to cut back spending and 59 percent indicating they will bundle shopping trips due to rising gasoline prices.

Vertis researchers found that among those who make between $50,000 and $75,000 annually, 40 percent will restrict spending on items that cost more than $100. Of those respondents who said they make more than $100,000 annually, 37 percent said they will cut back on “unnecessary” purchases this year.

Those intentions are translating into lower sales for retailers and fewer orders for distributors of high-end products, one Middletown enterprise among them.

“There’s been a little bit of a drop-off because of the difficult times specialty stores are having,” said Curtis Cord.

Curtis and Kelley Cord run three related companies in Middletown that import French-made goods. They supply high-end retailers, such as Nordstrom Inc., as well as boutiques around the country.

The businesses, run out of a warehouse and factory store on Aquidneck Avenue, include French Soaps, French Source and Durance USA.

The Cords’ inventory includes bath and beauty products, candles, ceramics, gourmet gift linens and handmade toys.

The premier item is Savon de Marseille, big blocks of olive oil-based soaps handmade in the south of France. It was the first product the Cords imported when they started the company about a decade ago in Portsmouth, N.H., and it helped them build a product line that now fills part of a small warehouse in a Middletown commercial strip.

“We’re at a pretty low inventory point right now, which is a pretty good thing,” Curtis Cord said as he walked amid metal shelving reaching well above his head. “You don’t want to be invested in your inventory right now.”

Yet, it’s not all bad news for the Cords’ enterprise.

They have found saving graces in the globalized economy, the couple said.

One benefit came last year from the turmoil caused by lead-paint scares in the toy industry, which brought them unexpected business just as the U.S. economy was shuddering to a crawl.

Big-name retailers such as Sears and the Discovery Channel stores came calling last fall as they scrambled to fill shelves with toys free of toxins. The Cords’ line of wooden toys fit the bill.

“Who would have known it would have been to our advantage?” asked Kelley. “[Retailers] kind of fell into our lap.”

Sales to those big chains supplement orders from the small boutiques that make up the bulk of their roughly 1,000 retail buyers.

The couple started their business in 1997, running it out of a store in Portsmouth before moving to Middletown in 2000.

For a decade, the Cords’ businesses benefited from the trend of Americans trading up on the quality and cost of the goods they bought during a long economic expansion, interrupted for only a short period in the aftermath of 9/11.

“There was an upgrading of the bath products just like there was an upgrading of coffee,” Curtis Cord said, referring to the effect Starbucks had on coffee tastes in the United States.

Now, more Americans are trading down, rather than up.

“Affluent Americans backed off markedly in their pursuit of the luxury lifestyle, most notably in the second half of 2007,” according to Pam Danziger, head of luxury industry research group Unity Marketing. “Going in to 2008 their spending continues [weakly].

“This will place tremendous competitive pressure on luxury companies and retailers, as they face a newly resistant affluent consumer with a mindset to hold onto their cash.”

Among the few bright spots, Danziger’s research shows, is “fragrance and beauty products.”

Cord says people are still buying “little luxuries” like $36 bottles of Pelletier Ambre bubble bath, $12 cubes of Savon de Marseilles soap and $7 sachets. Increasingly this year, those customers are finding the products imported by the Cords on their Web site — www.frenchsoaps. com

“We always felt that the Internet would be a great tool for use because our products need some explaining,” Curtis Cord said, “helping distinguish them from [mass-produced goods].”

Internet sales are an increasing portion of their business this year, he said, a development that aligns with the findings of a recent Harris Interactive poll that showed that one-third of U.S. adults who access the Internet regularly said they are now more likely to shop online, due to the high price of gasoline.

pgrimald@projo.com