Black Friday
Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving which determines many stores success for the year, coined “black” Friday meaning profitable compared to if a business is in the red they meaning they are in the negative, so black Friday is a crucial day for many stores and businesses to ensure a good year. According to many sites, sales were pretty good this year, possibly a tad higher than last year. An article from smallbusinessnewz.com reported sales increased by one percent from last year, while the startribune.com reported a 3% increase and another article from Yahoo Finance indicated sales rose from 10.3 billion dollars in 2007 to 10.6 billion dollars this year, which sounds like a pleasant surprise considering the current economic situation. Even though total consumer spending was pretty good, businesses may not have fared as well as the numbers portray. The reason being to get consumers to loosen up their wallets stores had to slash prices even more, so even though sales increased, business’s profits may have been lower than previous years. Another thing to consider is that just because the overall sales reported was better than last year doesn’t mean every store did well. An article from the San Fransico Chronicle included figures from many of the big name retailers, and how well, or not so well each of them did. They explained how discount and warehouse types of stores generally did well which is normal during times of economic turmoil, while higher end retailers didn’t do so well. For example Abercrombie & Fitch reported a -28% change in sales compared to this time last year where Walmart had a +3.4% increase. I think it came down to how much consumers could get for their dollar, so they were willing to spend more to get more but couldn’t justify big spending on high dollar items.
