Posted on 11/25/2012 11:18:15 AM PST by Zakeet
Edited on 11/25/2012 1:41:12 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
With all bad news on the tape now having a suitable "explanation", be it a prior president, a tropical storm, the weather being too hot, the weather being too cold, the weather being just right, but never, ever someone actually taking blame for the fact that life is what happens when corporate CEOs (and sovereign presidents) are busy making "priced to perfection" plans. So it is with what is now a confirmed flop of a Black Friday, which according to ShopperTrak saw sales drop by nearly 2% to $11.2 from 2011, which in turn was a 6.6% gain over 2010 (and would be revised to far lower once all the refunds and exchanges to cash took place in the two weeks later). This occurred despite a 3.5% increase in retail foot traffic to 307.7 million store visits. The nominal drop in retail sales also occurred despite a nearly 1% increase in the total US population over last Thanksgiving, and a 2% Y/Y inflation. But fear not: the ad hoc excuse for this "surprising" loss in purchasing power is already handy: it is all Black Thursday's fault, or the latest idiotic attempt by retailers to cannibalize their own future sales by diluting the exclusivity of Black Friday, and which will force all retailers to follow the sovereigns in a race to the bottom, as soon every day will be the equivalent of Black Friday. But at least retailers have another 364 years worth of excuses for the conceivable future to excuse any and all store weakness. Next year: it's all Black Wednesday's fault.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Walmart said it had the highest sales in its history. The other retailers have not published their results as yet.
Walmart wanted the union protestors to know they had zero effect on their sales.
Over the past few years, I’ve noticed the Black Friday sales reports that come out in the media are always described as blockbuster increases and upticks, but come January, when referenced, the same media refers back to them as below-par and overall disappointments.
It's The O-conomy, stupid!
O-conomy: An economic system built by Barack Obama to
crash free enterprise economics and crush market forces in favor of
a "from the top down" restructuring of a country into a welfare state.
If Black Friday itself was down because more people were out on Thursday why not just total Thursday and Friday sales and compare to that for previous years? If they’re inventive they could also do some adjustment for historical Thursday business. Maybe basic math is just too hard for some people.
$500 sound about right for what we’ve already been spending over the past couple of years.
We have an excellent collection of Christmas stuff for entertaining- decorations from Italy, Czech, Germany- ornaments from the same, tableware, CDs. A great supermarket with a gourmet kitchen for food. An annual concert at a Cath Church with traditional music. And bonus, no OB voters in that mix.
A ski trip, Tour of Italy, Christmas in Paris - memory bank for now. Wouldn’t trade them, but this works.
Friends, food, Faith.
It works, sorry retailers.
I send my extended family a local food treat, $30 per family. It adds up. Sorry, retailers. I’d rather be in Benghazi than at Walmart on “Black Friday”.
Is Red Friday a couple of years ahead?
On Friday I had to go to Tractor Supply and then on to WalMart. Tractor Supply had a much fuller parking lot than Walmart did. All of the registers were going at full speed.
At Walmart, there were two of the Grocery style lanes open and three of the 20 items or less registers going. And even then I only had one person ahead of me. Now I must say that our Local Walmart is in a small town and not a city, but it is still next to the major highway and was not busy at all.
In my quick walk-through Walmart I can also report that the Sporting Goods was the busiest department of all. The slowest? Toys, followed by Health and beauty.
I walked though two nyc Best Buys this afternoon. Both had very light foot traffic.
Both stores were very busy on Friday, though.
Blame? I would think lowering the slope of the sales curve by a slight extension would be helpful.
Number of sales was up, dollars brought in was down.
^ This..
One can only hope next year’s “black” days will shrink by the number of those A$$e$ featured on the videos looking like ravishing, amoral farm animals fighting for toasters. Oh, how the international humanists who created them, love to laugh and sneer at them.
Can you imagine being featured around the globe, tearing at other people to git yo bad American self a trinket in the name of Jesus Christ’s birthday party? Someone is laughing his A$$ off and it’s not Jesus.
I saw NO traffic to speak of on Rt. 110 between Farmingdale and Huntington LY NY on “black friday”. None. This is a major “corridor” on LI. Never happened before, rather traffic is gridlocked on black fridays previous.
Dammit! That is LI as in Long Island, NY.
They haven’t learned from the master, it’s Bush’s fault.
Wal-Mart started this nonsense followed by Target and then others. They are going to kill off the “specialness” of Black friday if they don’t stop.
Employees no longer have a holiday and people are starting to think “why go out at all?” In their mind, the sales don’t end and no reason to rush out and buy.
Also re-electing the Kenyan killed it for many, including myself. We cut our total holiday spending to $500 for the whole season. With an expected $3800 in new taxes on us next year with the tax increases, I am not in a spending frame of mind.
Join the club. We are doing the same thing as we prepare for $3800 in new taxes next year. We plan to spend no more than $500 for the whole holiday season (Thanksgiving and Christmas & New Year).
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