Black Friday
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving day. Tomorrow as we most know is Black Friday marked by history as the day the most companies went from the Red to the black because more than 25% of the whole years worth of profits were sold on that day or closely after. However, there is a bit of a cycle that seems to be the big reason why people go out to shop on Friday… Discounts and Sales… “Doorbusters.” Most companies however are expecting low profits and a bleak outlook on the rest of the season.
Right now however we are engaged in a season of price competition… but not just a little bit of competition we are talking about taking losses to draw in crowds in hopes they may spend more money on other products. Taken from newyorktimes.com
While bargains are already on offer at J. C. Penney, Mr. Hicks said the company’s doorbusters would make it worth lining up before sunrise. Over all, J. C. Penney, which plans to open at 4 a.m., will have 20 percent more specials this year than last year, like a five-piece luggage set for $38.88. “We’re selling some items purely intended to drive that traffic in,” Mr. Hicks said.
Seems kind of iffy to base a whole sale system based upon the hope that people will stay in your store longer when almost everyone else in competition will do the same thing. In other words, coming from someone who has worked retail for many years… if you create a sale like this its to draw people in with a sale that no one else is doing. Other analyst have stating the same thing:
“There’s no reason to suspect this will end,” said Dan de Grandpre, editor in chief of Dealnews.com, which has been tracking Black Friday deals for about a decade. “This kind of heavy discounting will continue until we see some retailers start to fail, until they start to go out of business.”
I hope that the mass discounting is taken into consideration when trying to draw in crowds. The people who are going for the big sales are coming in for certain items and then they move onto the next store and go for that item and so on and so on. I don’t know about you, but I dread shopping, much less doing anything on Black Friday… so I stay put and wait for later that week to do any shopping.
catchthespindan said,
November 28, 2008 at 4:36 am
While shopping on Black Friday for Christmas gifts you need to be ready for accidents. If you get struck by a bullet, arrow, knife, stick, or sword you are likely to have a “penetrating” injury. If one of these items lodge in a vital area of your body (the trunk or eye) removing them may make the problem worse causing you to “bleed out”. If you are not comfortable removing the item yourself, you should find one of the available clerks (as they are trained to do this). If it is your scalp that gets injured (get scalped) you will need to take additional steps to prevent bleeding out. The scalp, if struck directly will bleed profusely. If you get “scalped” while shopping you will not likely survive. Be safe and be ready to help a fellow shopper if they get injured.