WSJ: Black Friday Sales Rise, But Only Slightly

[marmar]

from Wall Street Journal:



By ELIZABETH HOLMES

Black Friday sales rose only slightly from a year ago even though more shoppers visited stores, retail traffic monitor ShopperTrak said Saturday, setting the stage for another uncertain holiday season for retailers.

Sales increased 0.3% to $10.7 billion, according to ShopperTrak, which installs monitoring devices in stores to gauge traffic. Traffic rose by 2.2%, ShopperTrak said.

The smaller than expected increase is due in part to discounts offered earlier in November as well as online-only promotions, ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin said. Traffic to stores was up over 6% for the first two weeks of November, an early boost that could affect retailers' performance in the coming weeks, he said. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703609204575640482545086658.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

[Berserker]

1. What a

crock of shit. The malls and stores are so fricken packed you can't even talk to a sales person and the thermostat is cranked up to about 90 fucking degrees in Wisconsin and Minnesota stores for your shopping comfort. Drive by any store or mall and you have to hunt for parking spaces, recession my ass. That's just more corporate media bullshit. Consume Consume Consume.

[bbinacan]

2. Online sales were up 16%. n/t

[cbdo2007]

3. Wow, that's really great news, but only slightly.

[Warpy]

4. I went to a big art show in town

which is about all that can pry me out of the house for the whole month between Thanksgiving and Xmas unless I need food or a new scrip. People were buying this year, carrying multiple bags.

I love to see other people out there supporting local artists and craftspeople. There was some truly beautiful stuff there this year.

[rfranklin]

5. Please, Santa, Let This Be the Last Christmas in America (that's supposed to "save" the U.S. economy

My Christmas wish to Santa: please let this be the last Christmas in America that is dominated by the propaganda that holiday retail sales have any more impact on the $14.7 trillion U.S. economy than a moldy, half-eaten fruitcake left over from 2007.



Fact: the 2010 GDP of the U.S. is projected to be about $14.7 trillion. (CBO estimate) The Federal Budget Primer.

Components of Government spending within U.S. GDP.

Fact: total holiday retail sales were $504 billion in 2009. Holiday sales--National Retail Federation.

That means holiday retail sales are a mere 3.4% of the U.S. GDP.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov10/last-christmas11-10.html

[OlympicBrian]

6. Holiday Sales are Seen as a Gauge of Consumer Sentiment

Also, they can "make or break" some of the retailers.

[SoCalDem]

7. The sad truth, is that there are TOO MANY "all-alike-stores"

offering too much foreign-made plastic crap.. They have cannibalized each other into oblivion.. They all sell the same junk, for about the same price to the same shrinking population of people who still have a little credit left..

[OlympicBrian]

8. You struck a note...

I bought this cute little night-light a few weeks ago, that automatically turned on at night. It was great for awhile, but then just yesterday it started to fade and flicker. I angrily pulled it out of the outlet.

I turned it over and it said "Made in China" on the bottom of it...

I don't think it was cheap either.