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Monday, November 26, 2007
Black Friday
I mentioned this last year and I'll repeat it again:
Every year after the Black Friday shopping blitz, the media turns to retail analysts who are generally pleased and optimistic because of an increase in same store sales over the previous year. What they never seem to factor in is the amount of product that was sold at low margin, cost, or below cost. Unless someone like Wal-Mart forces a manufacturer to sell them a product at deep discount (and they do force manufacturers to do a lot of things that are not profitable in order to keep the business) to use as a promotional item which in turn drives sales, they're not really making any money. They're just bumping their cash flow and running in place.
Add to that the increased costs of doing business and the value of the crappy dollar (with so many products that are imported pushing up the cost of goods) and they may very well be running at a loss. What the retailers and the retail analyst experts who haunt the airwaves after Black Friday are actually selling is the happy horseshit that all is well and you should spend spend spend just like the Joneses are supposedly spending spending spending.
One more thing: the prevalence of gift cards skews the reporting of sales when a retailer takes in x amount of dollars for the card, but then it is generally used in the days after Christmas on product that has been slashed for post-Christmas sales as retailers attempt to get in as much cash as possible while decreasing inventory levels (unless it's wine or cheese, it's not getting any more valuable with age) before the January doldrums. Again: no margin, no profit.
As a consumer, there are lots of good deals to be had, but they're only good deals if you are buying within your means. Just don't buy the hype that everything is rainbows and ponies reindeer. This is not going to be a good retail season.
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