"Black Friday" NOT biggest shopping day of year!!!

"I ordered a wood burning name/date stamp for my dad (he builds furniture) at the last minute..I hope it gets here on time!"

That sounds like a very cool gift! Don't worry, I won't be ordering anything personalized. I did get a bit of shopping done, I think I am almost through with the kinder, I even did my "toys for tots" before even seeing one collection bucket go up, so I'm ahead on that. I just seem to have no imagination this year, but I did so good the past two years maybe it's ok!

Black Friday isn't significant because it's the busiest day of the year... It is significant because it is the day most retailers FINALLY go into the "black" for the first time during the year. Every sale made AFTER "balck Friday" is their profits.

If this is so, why don't "most retailers" only stay open between Thanksgiving and Christmas? Why bother posting losses the other 11 months of the year? Do the math -- if I was a business owner who could earn better than a normal year's worth of profits by staying open for only a month, I sure would.

Because if they weren't open for those first 11 months, then they wouldn't go into the black at all...

I never said they are earning a years WORTH of profits in one month... Its just the point at which a years worth of work finally becomes PROFITABLE... There is a HUGE difference.

Fact is brick and mortar businesses HAVE to be open 12 months a year... They have to pay rent on a store whether they're open or not... People need "stuff" 12 months a year. So they rent a building, pay insurance, hire workers, stock inventory, buy advertising, pay utilities, etc., etc., etc... even though they wont break even on that investment until November... In December we ALL go shopping, and that "season" makes the rest of the year worth working.

The mathematics dictates that they are earning that year's worth of profit in a little over a month, because from January 1 to Thanksgiving Day they are, at best, break even. You canna change the laws of mathematics! Yes there are logistical issues to establishing a seasonal only business, but some ingenuity (such as sharing space with less-seasonal businesses such as supermarkets) could get around many of these issues.

Its not the laws of math... its the laws of inventory and return on investment.

I could invest $1000 and sell lemonade 1 day a year... Just the hottest day of the year. But, regardless of how much lemonade I sell, I'm not going to make much more than a few hundred dollars that year. I can't feed my family off a few hundred dollars a year.

Instead I invest $5,000,000. I buy a grove full of lemons, and a sugar cane field full of sugar, and 3 million dixie cups. I rent retail outlets across the country in every mall in America, and I hire a bunch of teenage girls to wear funny hats and jump up and down on a state of the art lemon squeezing machine, and maybe I take out an ad in the newspapers touting my fresh squeeze lemonade. Except for the "funny hat girls'" salaries (who I can lay off if things get really bad) That money is GONE. SPENT. My books are MILLIONS NEGATIVE the day I open the door. I know I wont sell a LOT of lemonade during January and February, but I also know, there are enough people who NEED A DRINK and LIKE LEMONADE, EVEN when its cold that I will chip away at that negative number throughout the year... THEN COMES SUMMER... And my books FINALLY go into the black... My investment pays off over the long-haul... And instead of a few hundred dollars worth of profit, I have a few hundred THOUSAND dollars worth of profit... With this, I can not only support my family, but I can reinvest in my business, and next year I can have a few MILLION dollars worth of profit...

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