Black and Blue Friday

Are you planning on spending more this season???

Tis the season to go shopping, at least historically it has been. But what, if anything has changed this season.  To start off with, at first glance all the media is gearing up for the years busiest month for retailers, both on and off line. The ads are starting to show up, the malls are fancied with their best ornamentation and the sound of your favorite Christmas carols are being piped in from Muzak 24/7.

This past Veterans Day in the Northeast corridor of the US,  encountered gorgeous sunny weather and everywhere you looked, parking lots were overflowing with cars and people. Veterans Day is always a good barometer for gauging shopping patterns for the upcoming season. And by any estimate, people were out in droves.

The official kick off to the Holiday shopping season has been recently (early 1970’s) called  ”Black Friday“. It is in reference to the once common accounting practices that would use red ink to show negative amounts and black ink to show positive amounts. Black Friday, under this theory, is the beginning of the period where retailers would no longer have losses (the red) and instead take in the year’s profits (the black).

In the past few years a new day has been designated as “Cyber Monday” which refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season in the United States between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Both Black Friday and Cyber Monday are erroneous in regards to being the busiest shopping days of the year.  The most hyped days yes, the busiest in regards to money exchanging hands, no. Those days are actually closer to December 25th and to be precise the 10 days leading up to Christmas.  After all you have to remember that men hate to shop. We are procrastinators, so we always wait for the last minute.  It is with our help, that the busiest days in regards to actually selling products,  are the days closest to the arrival of Kris Kringle and is band of flying Reindeer.

While this past Veterans Day was jam packed with people and all the usual signs of the holiday shopping season are in place, it is with a discerning heart that I make this statement. This will be the worse holiday shopping season, we have seen in over 30 years.

For those who are regular readers to this blog, I think you know that I am far from being a pessimist. Unfortunately this statement is not one to create more fear in the consumer conscience, but a plea to prove me wrong.  There is absolutly nothing on the near horizon to make me think any different and all the signals that store owners rely on, help to make this statement with conviction.

I hope I am wrong! I could take the next ten paragraphs explaining why I believe this as gospel. But I have this feeling anyone reading this post, will, in their gut, agree with it.

Yes there will be exceptions to this statement, perhaps the fast food restaurants will do better, or the liquor store on the corner. But as a whole, across the board, consumer confidence will show, that we are far from seeing any break to the dismal economy. An economy that was been plaguing us for the past eighteen months.

I am not adverse to eating that delectable foul we all know as CROW. I will be happy to sit down and eat it every last feather on New Years Eve,  if I am proven wrong.  So if the prospect of me devouring this delicacy will prompt just a few of you to go out and spend a few extra dollars this holiday season, then let me tell you now,  I am salivating already!

Tags: Black Friday, Christmas, Christmas and holiday season, Cyber Monday, Holiday, Online Shopping, Retailing, United States

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 11:28 PM and is filed under MONEY, NEWS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.