Black Friday Sales

Black Friday sales increase from 2009

This year’s Black Friday sales increased from last years. Is this a good sign for the US economy? According to Shoppertrak the crowds were a little bigger with an increase of 2.2% customer traffic. The National Retail Federation issued a report stating that the traffic increased from 195 billion shoppers in 2009 to 215 billion shoppers in 2010 during the 4 day period. Also, it was stated that 33% of the shoppers bought items for themselves. This means that Americans are starting to feel more comfortable about spending this year. Over a year’s time, consumers learned to deal and budget their income while the economy is in a turmoil, which allowed them to spend slightly more this Christmas versus last year. The door buster deals that led to the $45 billion dollars spent may have caused some shoppers to purchase items for themselves that they may have not been able to afford which allowed them to purchase these goods. Although there was increase in sales during black Friday at over 70,000 stores, the big surprise was the pretty significant jump in online sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Combined the two days increased sales by 37%. Indications show that more people are likely to stay at home and shop rather than deal with mad rushes of shoppers. A cause of the increase could be simply because many of the items were not purchased throughout the year, so the supply was high and the companies were able to deflate the prices of goods. Also, most Americans are looking for the “great buys” in today’s economy. Some companies may be going to an alternate material to create the product which allows companies to lower the cost of the product to the consumer. This still allows the manufactures and companies to make the same profits if not more due to the decrease in variable costs for each product produced. Although the Black Friday sales were diluted slightly because of increased sales in the first two weeks of November, the projected increase this holiday season is at about 3.2 %. As long as producers continue to give the good deals, consumers will continue to hunt them out and spend the extra dollars this Holiday season.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/27/news/economy/Black_friday_2010_sales/index.htm