Tuesday, November 29, 2011
In The Black
It turned out to be a very Black Friday this year. I can report a brisk return to holiday shopping and so far, I'm encouraged. Better than expected, and I'm happy to report that it seems to be trending all over the country. According to today's news, the reports are in and this could be a very merry Christmas for retailers. Wall Street is also happy. The Dow rallied 291 points yesterday and consumer confidence seems to be growing.
Much of this weekend's hype was created specifically by the media and the retailers to create a shopping frenzy, and it worked because sales are up. "Black Friday sales were unbelievably good-really solid," said John Herman of Boston-based State Street Global Markets.
Shoppers were bombarded with Black Friday images and ads on most all media outlets, begging some to ask the question, "am I missing out on something?"
The common denominator in all this is discounts. In order to survive, retailers must be competitive and offer substantial discounts to their customers. And we did. For me, this translated into more volume than last year. With American Express sponsored and advertised Small Business Saturday immediately following Black Friday, the weekend turned into a Black Business windfall for small retailers.
Yesterday's Cyber Monday's numbers are not in yet, but early projections speculate sales increasing form last year by 15% and this could all bode well for the economy to start out the 2012 New Year.
I'm hoping to ride this wave of consumer confidence. Keep shopping America, and keep shopping local.
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9 comments:
sounds like you are faring better in the recovery over there than we are... another of the big chains announced a plan to close about 250 shops ... so it continues :-(
Hopefully you'll get to mace a few people. xo
Fingers crossed for a recovery!
Lats Friday wuz jus anudda day fo' me.....
I always shop online the Monday BEFORE Thanksgiving, and seem to do just as well price-wise WITHOUT all the B.S. and madness.
"This didn't NAFTA happen."
You couldn't pay me to go out on black Friday. I also chose not to shop online yesterday. I'm a rebel, what can I say. I DO buy local, though. :)
Candace when it comes to you I am torn, I am of the spend nothing crowd of growing resistance to consumerism maintaining the economy by being 72% of GDP.
On the other hand I am happy for your store that sales were up. That is good for you personally but then when people use the plastic it drives debt as cash and that is what really crashed us (in simply put terms) in the first place.
As an independent retailer do well, there are still enough of them around here where I can do
90% of needed purchases with them.
But I like I said refuse to participate as does my wife in spending what does not need to spent.
What about those of us that are in the national debt and on a shopping sabbatical? I guess someone could shop in my closet, pay me, and then maybe it would be Black November for me...
Just saying...
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