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Black Friday -- how did it go? Anyone have any links to news reports?

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Deleted member 4644

Black Friday -- how did it go? Anyone have any links to news reports?

I haven't seen any credible sources that have sales data for black friday?

Was it black? was it red? are we screwed?
 
Walmart got wealthier while one of their employees got trampled to death. Other than that, business as usual.
 
Most sources are saying that it was 3% above last year's, however margins for retailers are much lower this year. Here's the only decent article I could find so far. I'm sure more in depth articles will be popping up soon.

My personal opinion is that shoppers were holding back their money and mainly buying the lowest ticket items. Consumers are beginning to save, and with good reason. They either have to now, or know that they might have to in the future. Money is becoming more of a luxury, especially if you're worried about your job.
 
When you include sales figures from places like Walmart it skews the data to show that retailers did better. when in fact most shoppers avoided the expensive stores in favor of shopping at discount stores like WalMart. That, plus the fact that the stores were discounting items drastically to get people to buy, and that many shoppers tend to only buy the loss leaders, it was probably not a good sales event for the retailers. Being 3% above last year is an indication of gross sales and not profit margins. You can expect to see a number of retailers closing unprofitable stores starting in January along with a few announcing bankruptcy. I usually travel to my nearest big city so I can go to Best buy, Circuit City, Target, Staples, etc. to grab deals everywhere. This year I stayed in my small home town and bought only some $2 DVDs at WM and some $2 and $3 DVDs at Big Lots. I did place a few orders online for some bargains, but overall I spent less than half what I usually do on BF.
 
But Obama would have you believe we are in the worst economy since the great depression. Someone should tell consumers. Else most people just figure they will get a bailout on their credit cards.
 
This Black Friday thing hasn't caught on with a rather large segment of the population. The day after Thanksgiving is also known as "leftovers day" to millions of Americans, who will get to their shopping after some of the BF craziness has died down. Although it is an important day for retailers, I think perhaps the MSM puts too much emphasis on that one day....
 
Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
But Obama would have you believe we are in the worst economy since the great depression. Someone should tell consumers. Else most people just figure they will get a bailout on their credit cards.
Click to expand...

Are you saying you don't think that the nation's economic situation is the worst it's been since the Great Depression?
 
Originally posted by: conehead433
When you include sales figures from places like Walmart it skews the data to show that retailers did better. when in fact most shoppers avoided the expensive stores in favor of shopping at discount stores like WalMart. That, plus the fact that the stores were discounting items drastically to get people to buy, and that many shoppers tend to only buy the loss leaders, it was probably not a good sales event for the retailers. Being 3% above last year is an indication of gross sales and not profit margins. You can expect to see a number of retailers closing unprofitable stores starting in January along with a few announcing bankruptcy. I usually travel to my nearest big city so I can go to Best buy, Circuit City, Target, Staples, etc. to grab deals everywhere. This year I stayed in my small home town and bought only some $2 DVDs at WM and some $2 and $3 DVDs at Big Lots. I did place a few orders online for some bargains, but overall I spent less than half what I usually do on BF.
Click to expand...

That sounds exactly like my black friday experience. The discount stores were pretty busy and other stores like best buy were empty. I went to best buy at 9:00am was expecting the usual line around the store but to my suprise the check out line was only 10 deep.
 
As charrison said, the TV news is reporting increased sales revenue of 3% (albeit on much lower prices) compared to last year.
 
Originally posted by: MovingTarget
This Black Friday thing hasn't caught on with a rather large segment of the population. The day after Thanksgiving is also known as "leftovers day" to millions of Americans, who will get to their shopping after some of the BF craziness has died down. Although it is an important day for retailers, I think perhaps the MSM puts too much emphasis on that one day....
Click to expand...

this.
 
Last year I did my BF shopping on the computer, but Staples ended up canceling all my hot deals the next day (out of stock) despite the initial confirmation. This year I hit two stores-the local Staples and Cabelas. At both stores I bought only supersaver deals. More significantly, every shopper I observed was doing the same thing-if it wasn't on a major sale it was ignored.

Hey, I'm up early naturally and there is something oddly satisfying about hanging around outside Staples in the pitch black and cold. Got my into work early at least.
 
didn't really see anything good enough to drive me to wake up early this year.

still hoping to catch a good deal on a harmony remote for my dad, but I'm otherwise done with my x-mas shopping (well, I still need to buy my mom's gift, but I've never seen global knives on sale. just going to head over to bed, bath and beyond with a couple 20% off coupons)
 
Black Friday sales up 7.2%. This doesn't include inflation or population increase, so the actual change is smaller than appears.

It could be a good sign that the consumer is still spending. Or, it could be a bad sign because they only spent it on extreme bargains (good for consumers but bad for businesses, jobs, and government revenues). With 20% fewer shopping weekends, stores often hope for more than 7.2% gains in sales.
 
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