Doesn't Feel Like An Economic Slowdown
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Economy | Holiday Shopping — Comments (27) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
This is quite heartening:
The nation's retailers had a robust start to the holiday shopping season, according to results announced Saturday by a national research group that tracks sales at retail outlets across the country.
According to ShopperTrak RCT Corp., which tracks sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets, total sales rose 8.3 percent to about $10.3 billion on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, compared with $9.5 billion on the same day a year ago. ShopperTrak had expected an increase of no more than 4 percent to 5 percent.
"This is a really strong number. ... You can't have a good season unless it starts well," said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, citing strength across all regions. "It's very encouraging. When you look at September and October, shoppers weren't in the stores."
In a separate statement released Saturday, J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) reported "strong performance across all merchandise categories," including fine jewelry, outerwear, and young men's and children's assortments.
As the next paragraph notes, however, retailers are not necessarily out of the woods. But it is nice to see that the holiday shopping season appears to have gotten off on the right foot.
What are reader experiences at their local shopping venues?
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Doesn't Feel Like An Economic Slowdown 27 Comments (0 topical, 27 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
The wire story you linked quotes a survey from one firm that appeared in a bunch of other stories too. Supposedly sales on the 23rd were well ahead of the corresponding Friday in 2007. According to other reports, sales for the whole three-day weekend are running considerably below last year.
HAving several friends in towns around me who have their own businesses, they and their customers and assorted friends reported sales being heavy on Friday, but mostly at the big box stores. Those are the ones that can afford to have those great deals on big ticket items, but usually their supplies of those items are limited, are they not? One WalMart near us was offering a savings of $500.00 off some TV, but there were only 19 offered for sale. And I believe that most of these huge saving deals were limited to Friday between certain hours.
I wouldn't shop on Black Friday for anything in this world. I hate shopping.
& brandy (see, I believe in tradition, too!), because the weather was cold and raining, as it was in much of the country.
There are two things retailers don't like during the holidays:
1) warm weather
2) rain (the ideal winter weather is bright sun and cold, or very light flurries- real precipitation is a downer)
Thanksgiving was also a little early this year. We'll know how the shopping season turns out in a couple of weeks.
on Friday, while our usually consistently Conservative radio talk show hosts were taking a well-earned day off, the ABC Radio network was running show after show about how poor the economy will be this shopping season. Between these doomsday naysayers, were stories about the dangers of nearly every product available in stores this year -- if it came from China.
All toys from China are going to kill our children with lead, choking or both. Cosmetics are going to poison women, or worse, disfigure them for life.
Now, I am sure that the MSM has NO vested interest in creating a dismal economy in the last year of the Bush presidency -- but they sure do like to "talk down the economy."
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Considering where the good doctor's head was, when practicing medicine, is it any wonder that the man has issues?
this past Saturday
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
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Not to be too MSM-depressive about it but I don't think we can make too much of the Black Friday race for bargains.
Bargain hunting is not the same as big spending. Every survey I've seen---and my friends and family agree---suggests that most are trying to spend less.
I hope retailers will see profits but equally I pray that consumers will be smart enough to reserve money for their needs after the holidays.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
U.S. Consumers Spent 3.5% Less on Holiday Shopping (Update3)
By Cotten Timberlake and Tiffany Kary
Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. consumers spent 3.5 percent less during the post-Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend than a year earlier as retailers slashed prices to lure customers grappling with higher food and energy costs.
Eric
Templeton, MA
you registered for the express purpose of talking down the economy? Thanks
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Considering where the good doctor's head was, when practicing medicine, is it any wonder that the man has issues?
Retail sales are what they are and if they are down we don't have to take it as some form of rejection.
If it makes you feel any better, just imagine tomorrow's NYTimes headline: 'Shoppers Fear Hillary Presidency; Stop Shopping!'
to talk down the economy for the past 6 years? Read the comment above.
If the numbers were well UP, the MSM spin would be that shoppers are flooding the discount markets because they don't have enough money to pay full price. Why is is always a story when people wait for sales? As though that isn't ALWAYS human nature.
How much did we hear about all the new homeowners in the housing boom a couple of years ago? We didn't hear much anxeity at the time about what eventually happened. It was clear to anyone paying attention that many of those buyers were in over their heads and yet it was just championed as "boom in the housing market, new homeowners" etc.
If you want to understand the media understand that both conservatives and liberals claim the media is biased in the opposite direction. The reason? The media is just enslaved to the current moment and ratings. They are selectively dishonest, but I honestly don't see them as biased heavily towards one side over the other. They are just dishonest in general.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
-H. L. Mencken
Electronics and toys from Asia.
It's now Monday morning in Asia, and export-sensitive stocks are up. The yen is down, and US Treasuries are down. The dollar is up against the euro.
The reaction to our big-sales weekend is guardedly positive. Let's hope for some follow-through when US markets open in about 12 hours.
Best Buy and Circuit City had lines around the stores by 9pm. People started camping before 3pm Thursday.
HH Gregg however was slower, mostly because they have a reputation for kinda weak sales and not much product besides that ONE specific TV you wanted, unlike Best Buy and Circuit City where you could load carts with crap on sale. Word was CompUSA, WalMart and Meijers all had huge lines.
Just to brag, got my 50 inch Hitachi 1080i Plasma for 999.99 24 months no interest. And it was freaking cold.
I think we can stop blaming the MSM for misleading the public if the public is refusing to be led.
If retail sales are indeed strong, then it seems that shoppers are thinking for themselves regarding their ability to buy.
...ability to buy. However, they accept MSM spin regarding the ability of others to buy.
That's why follow-up interviews in opinion polling consistently show that people are comfortable about their own jobs but deeply concerned about the economy.
A reverse effect is sometimes in evidence. I hear people talking about the strong economy of the Bush years. Being in business, I often wonder if I've been in the same country.
Some sectors of the economy (particularly export markets) have been red-hot for years. Most of the rest has been growing anemically or not at all.
Blackhedd, you don't seem impressed when others saw strength.
Now that everyone is seeing weakness, what do you think will be the growth areas?
The banking system is under tremendous stress, which means that no matter how much people may want to expand their businesses, they may not have the capital to do it.
No one has any clue whether the current weakness in the US will take the rest of the global economy with it, or whether the rest of the world will be able to generate enough demand to pull out of the dive. A lot will depend on how fast we fall.
The markets are giving off totally conflicting signals. In recent weeks, I've been somewhat reassured by the overwhelmingly negative tone to the markets. But in the last few days, I've read a few people being optimistic about business conditions, the value of the dollar, etc.
That's deeply frightening because you can't hit the bottom until all the optimism is utterly washed out.
...up. But no matter, that won't be the thrust of the story the masses will hear.
The story will be written by throngs of starry eyed, newly graduated journalism students who took an oath to their professors, upon graduation, to free a world enslaved by fascist capitalism.
"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is near enough to hear, does it make a sound?"
"If you tell a lie often enough, people will believe you"-Joseph Goebbels
"It is good for a young man of twenty to be a liberal, because it proves he has a heart. It is equally bad for that same young man at forty, to not be a conservative, because it proves he has no brain."-Winston Churchill
This report was for just one day in the shopping season. Many things affect how people shop on this one day, but mostly it's how it's marketed. Some stores were actually open on Thanksgiving this year. Some stores in Atlanta opened at 4AM on Friday morning. The limited quantity, loss-leader advertising is always big for the Friday after Thanksgiving. That's intended to get people to start their holiday shopping.
Also, as I understand it, this report is based on foot traffic. Sales numbers are extrapolated. Stastically that works. On average. How accurate is it for a single sample day? No data.
The longer shopping season should be good to retailers, but only time will tell.
you know as well as I do that there is so much economic data that the powers that be can present anything and make anything look the way they like. In 2002-2003, the Dems claimed it was a jobless recovery. Then, they went crazy about manufacturing, then savings, and now oil prices, the dollar, and my industry mortgages and real estate.
It is very easy to measure the health of the economy. You measure unemployment and job growth. You measure growth by the GDP and you measure inflation. All the rest of the numbers are for analysts, industries,and for those looking for one particular thing or another.
Of course, there is no slowdown, but the media, let by Bush frankly, has created the facade that our economy is doing poorly.
The real question is why is Bernanke lowering rates when the economy is doing so well. This is a question I asked and we should all be afraid if I am right.
Always tell the truth, George; it's the easiest thing to remember.
...at the December 11 Fed meeting. The markets are basically taking the Fed's statements about holding rates where there are, and trampling all over them.
There is almost certainly a large amount of pent-up demand in the economy, which may be why you're sensing that it feels strong.
There's no credit anywhere, though. And lack of credit is the match that sets off recessions.
In case anyone thinks I'm trying to talk down the economy for political or any other reasons, I invite you to come sit where I sit and try to make business plans for the next 12-24 months.
It's scary out there.
and while she doesn't have the experience of last year, the start was extremely heavy. They sold out of several big movers within minutes (large screen TVs and Wii systems) and they were extremely heavy until mid-afternoon when it subsided to just heavy.
Location is Indiana where the economy is supposedly soft.