Posted on 11/26/2011 6:52:32 PM PST by BunnySlippers
The holiday shopping season got off to a strong start on Black Friday, with retail sales up 7 percent over last year, according to the most recent survey. Now stores just have to keep buyers coming back without the promise of door-buster savings.
Buyers spent $11.4 billion at retail stores and malls, up nearly $1 billion from last year, according to a Saturday report from ShopperTrak. It was the largest amount ever spent on the day that marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and the biggest year-over-year increase since 2007. Chicago-based ShopperTrak gathers data from 25,000 outlets across the U.S., including individual stores and shopping centers.
The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. broke its Black Friday record for shoppers, thanks to a decision to open at midnight for the first time. Around 210,000 visitors came to the mall on Friday, up from 200,000 last year, according to mall spokeswoman Bridget Jewell.
Online shopping was strong as well, with a 24.3 percent increase in online spending on Black Friday, according to IBM, which tracks sales at 500 online retailers.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What is it after you adjust for inflation?
I think they are making stuff up. Our local Best Buy had spots open in the parking lot on Friday morning.
OWS boycott fail, but they did manage to look super-stupid at that WalMart in San Diego yesterday.
Stores around here were kind of quiet today. I wonder if a slow Saturday after Black Friday can offset a good Black Friday.
So if you adjust for the longer hours this year, is there still a 7% bump? If you report sales as a function of hours open on ‘black Friday’ does this still hold?
Independent of the answer to those questions, it doesn't seem so surprising that in a bad economy people are bargain hunting.
I went to the mall 2 weeks ago. I hate going to the mall.
It was well before Thanksgiving on a Saturday afternoon and it was JAMMED.
nice Christmas bump for a godless culture.
sales mean nothing.. it;s profit which are down..
It’s good to see sales up. It is a barometer.
If the fake journalists in America had any sense of intelligence amongst them, they would admit what everyone on Main Street knows: Hussein is a disaster, and there will be NO economic recovery until after American voters FIRE his ass next November.
Instead, they keep trying to prop this miserable jackball up with their propaganda...
What method was used to compute total sales on Friday?
There are millions of retailers in the country. Is our government so efficient that in less than 24 hours they accumulated all the data from a million sources and compiled it?
If you believe that, I have some land in Arizona I can sell very very cheap.
We spent several hours today at Alderwood Mall near I-5 in Washington state. It is a very large mall with lots of stores including Nordstrom’s and Macy’s. There were tons of items on sale at 50% off regular price. Checkout lines were very short in most stores we shopped, except Victoria’s Secret. May be last year was so bad this year looks good in comparison. A few years back, we could’nt even find parking space in malls on black Friday.
Agree, I am tired of the nightmare economy. Hope things will pick up.
Speculation, actual numbers come from sales tax receipts.
November 28, 2009 11:09 PM PrintText Black Friday Retail Sales Up 0.5% From ‘08
Shoppers spent only slightly more in stores this Black Friday - the traditional post-Thanksgiving Day shopping spree - than they did last year, according to data released Saturday by a national research firm.
Preliminary sales data from ShopperTrak RCT Corp. show shoppers spent $10.66 billion when they hit the malls on the day after Thanksgiving - only 0.5 percent more than last year.
Down twinkles!
Like their childish "occupations" of public parks, most Americans continue ignoring the ravings of the usual leftist suspects.
The occutards must be very disappointed at the complete failure of their "movement" to resonate with pretty much anyone other than their existing echo chamber.
I would suspect that like all the other numbers they post, they will be revised downward in the coming weeks with an explanation containing the word “unexpected”.
Assuming that these numbers from this historically wrong site are correct then we have done nothing short of pulling demand forward. Just as the federal government has done with their deficit spending. If sales for black Friday really were strong then it just means that people just spent their wad, and they won’t be spending so much going forward.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.