And there is always the East coast Huricane to fall back on!

Instead of Cyber Monday, they are now talking about making it Cyber Week! People get paid on Friday ya know.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I believe now q4 sales will be very bad...I was bullish to neutral not all that long ago.

Family and I agreed 10 years ago (at my dead-broke insistence) to a strict NO GIFT EXCHANGES policy, no exceptions. It's made the holiday a joy. If everyone had done that, the "economy" as such would appear to be far worse than it does now.

Have a friend that works in Staples (management), they had more sales rep than customers at black Friday. Most of their stores missed sales...

We've been kicking around holiday retail sales figures for the last 5 years. Regardless of where they fall - the ponzi remains intact. These flim-flam artists have 1001 tricks in their bag. The big question is how long can they continue juggling 6 plates at once? How long can they prolong the ponzi? I contend we're in the for long haul now. They hold all the cards.

Incomes are in the tank. Can't get sales from broke.

It's Bush's fault.

The truth lies somewhere inside the Visa, MC, Amex, and Discover buildings.

My family members have been getting cheap cards with one-ounce silver bullion rounds from me for the last few Christmases. As long as those coins are minted in Idaho and not China, the family can probably expect the same.

Quote:

The truth lies somewhere inside the Visa, MC, Amex, and Discover buildings.

It certainly no longer lies inside CIT.

I was out friday afternoon and into the evening doing some errands and some shooting at a indoor firing range that happens to be in a big shopping area.

IE near a mall and other strip malls with other little businesses and restaurants and such. Every year this area has always been hell trying to get around with a big increase in traffic starting on black friday and black friday weekend and lasting till the last weekend before christmas.

Lots of stuff within a roughly 1 square mile area with a major 6 lane road running down the middle of it and I-75 dividing that. Everything from a mall full of the mall stores (Belk, JCPenny, Bath and Body Works, etc.)
Strip malls with a Best Buy, Super Target, REI, Dicks sporting goods, A really big Hobbytown USA, Walmart, ect.
Then stand alone businesses, Subaru, Chevrolet, Toyota, Ect. Dealerships, BIG rooms to go store, Havertys, Ect.
Lots of Restaurants Red Lobster, Bahama Breeze, Chili's, TGIFridays, 2 Star bucks, and then cheaper places Steak n Shake, Mcdonalds, Chickfila, Ect.
And I saw lots of new places getting ready for opening. Sandwich shops and restaurants that were brand new with lights on but closed with now hiring signs out front.
You name it this place has it Lots of Variety something for everyone, and if it doesn't then your having to head to the Atlanta Malls or into the Gwinnett County area anyway.

It was OFF a lot.
It was off so much with so little traffic that I drove around and looked in the parking lots of the strips the malls and other places where I knew there would be lots of business if not lots of foot traffic. Normally it would take you 20 minutes to get from one end to the other of this roughly 1 mile long section with a dozen red lights this time of year, with lots of traffic. I did it in 10 with most lights catching me at red, it was not busy but not light. Most parking lots were either nearly empty to maybe half full. The Marietta Fish Markets parking lot wasn't even half full weird for a saturday night this time of year.

I'm telling you it was strange. Weird feeling almost like something was going on but I didn't know what, or the coming of a storm. 2 years ago we went to this area on the saturday after black friday. It was a mess and traffic hell.


I started a new job 2 weeks ago. Good job decent pay and insurance with benefits. They seem to be clueless about Obutthole care. They are saying overtime come January with the new contracts and orders they have coming in.

The rest of this year will be interesting to say the least.

Rotorblade, I had an experience similar to yours. I was at a Petco by a Walmart around 7:30 am Friday morning. Normally, traffic around that particular Walmart is a bit sketchy, due to the layout of the parking lot. Not only was there no traffic at the Walmart, the parking lot was relatively empty for that Walmart.

Also, my wife was out shopping on Friday and she was stunned at the lack of lines. She said it was the first time she'd ever encountered that on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

I really don't understand why people would go to the mall unless they had money to spend? Help me out here. I guess I'm projecting from my own viewpoint of the world. It would seem to be a frustrating experience for people without money to walk around the stores and observe all the nice store displays and enticing items without the means to make a purchase. It seems more likely to me that those without money would stay home to avoid the frustration of not having buying power. I went to the mall this weekend to get a small item from RadioShack. When I go to the mall it's always for a specific purpose with a specific purchase in mind. The mall was packed with people. It took me 10 minutes to find a damn parking spot. Quite a difference from, let's say, 4 years ago.

Black Friday online sales seem to be doing well.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/2....

I had a similar experience in Chicago this weekend. Two things may be at play here in addition to the economy. I think people are starting to look online a lot especially for when they actually make the purchase. Also, I think the retailers may be shooting themselves in the foot with the opening on Thursday and then Cyber Monday. So many days to get deals that many people are either confused or dont see the need to go out in the madness to purchase something. Either way my own view from downtown Chicago was that it was just a busy Friday. Strange!

Sandy. Poor sales 'cause of Sandy... Bad employment because of Sandy... Obama got re-elected because of Sandy... It's all Sandy's fault.

We sent out a coupon code for discounts on our site and have seen very little business. Everyone wants the product for free and free shipping on top of it. We only offer shipping on orders of $100 or more because of the tight margins. Most buyers have no clue about what kind of margins the retailers are making on most of this stuff. This is why Amazon will flounder for awhile before their business model starts eating itself.

I think the stupids blew their wad buying crap they really didn't need on Black Friday and we will be seeing lots of returns in the next week or so. They will wake up and realize they couldn't afford all the crap they bought and will be returning it. Most of the stores that sold doorbusters, made no money on the items sold. They were strictly loss leaders to get the fools into the store. Unfortunately, the fools were buying only those products, leaving the profitable merchandise on the shelves. People are being brainwashed into buying the dirt cheap sales and ignoring everything else. This too will end in a retail disaster.....

It's even worse than the -1.8% because it doesn't take into account inflation which is around 10% right now.

"Family and I agreed 10 years ago (at my dead-broke insistence) to a strict NO GIFT EXCHANGES policy, no exceptions. It's made the holiday a joy. If everyone had done that, the "economy" as such would appear to be far worse than it does now."

I agree with that, with the possible exception of home-prepared foods and/or wild game, arts/crafts made at home, and the giving of your time/talents.

Aztrader wrote..

. . . loss leaders to get the fools into the store. Unfortunately, the fools were buying only those products, leaving the profitable merchandise on the shelves. . . . This too will end in a retail disaster.....

One would think so, but the "loss leader" paradigm has been in use for many decades. I don't believe it would have lasted this long if it weren't effective in a big picture sense.

"And I saw lots of new places getting ready for opening. Sandwich shops and restaurants that were brand new with lights on but closed with now hiring signs out front.
You name it this place has it Lots of Variety something for everyone, and if it doesn't then your having to head to the Atlanta Malls or into the Gwinnett County area anyway.

It was OFF a lot.
It was off so much with so little traffic that I drove around and looked in the parking lots of the strips the malls and other places where I knew there would be lots of business if not lots of foot traffic. Normally it would take you 20 minutes to get from one end to the other of this roughly 1 mile long section with a dozen red lights this time of year, with lots of traffic. I did it in 10 with most lights catching me at red, it was not busy but not light. Most parking lots were either nearly empty to maybe half full. The Marietta Fish Markets parking lot wasn't even half full weird for a saturday night this time of year.

I'm telling you it was strange. Weird feeling almost like something was going on but I didn't know what, or the coming of a storm."

I spent some time in Gwinnett County last year for work and was struck at the amount of retail and office space that was vacant. It looked like a neutron bomb had gone off or something out of some apocalyptic movie where almost everyone died of a virus or something.

I live in Alaska, one of only two states that has had any net job creation in the last 5 years. It really took me aback and made me realize that despite the -40*F temperatures and stupid insane energy costs, I'm pretty fortunate to be doing well.

Noodleman - malls are weird, because not only are they shoppign centers, but for a large # of people they're also socialization centers (teens and young adults). Beware using a mall to judge your numbers. I like Karl's "bags" # a lot more.

Also, wrt Staples - they were the one big box store (in Mass area) that wasn't going full-blitz with teh BF sales and deals and advertising. I'm wondering if they know something no-one else does, since they're more in tune with business buying?

Peterm: be careful also with adhering to loss-leader - it may have worked in decades past, but we're in the midst of a defacto Depression - I'm not sure it's as universally valid as people think it is. The dotBomb era taught me a lot about "making it up on volume."

Online-only shopper. Jos A. Bank signature navy pinstripe suit for $179. Jos A. Bank Joseph 3-piece gray with white bead stripe suit for $298. Cole Haan shoes from Banks marked down from $168 to $109 to $82 (on sale at other stores like Macy's for $109).

Nice.

I went to Staples on Friday to get software that I needed. I'd estimate there were 4 or 5 staff for every customer, the place was EMPTY.

I bought exactly one item, and only got that because it was 30% off with a "free upgrade" to the next version.