William Larsen

Black Friday

Black Friday is reported to have seen increased sales of 7.2% over 2007 over the four-day weekend. I know my wife says she has completed most of her purchases and has several to return. What she found as the day went by, were ever better deals for the same identical item. She separated the things to keep from those to return. Depending on how many other buyers did the same thing, this 7.2% increase could evaporate. On top of this, the discounts that were offered to entice so many may be the only way for stores to “unload” their inventory by January ‘09. This means many stores will make very little or actually lose money for the year. It is my understanding that department stores actually run a loss nearly all year and that Christmas sales are what creates the profits necessary to stay in business.

I normally do not partake of the mad buying on Friday, but this year I did. I ventured out or should say my son did with his friends Thursday night as proxies to secure a spot in line to obtain those limited quantity, highly reduced items. My son while he was there was able to secure for me my purchase, which I picked up when I arrived at 5:00 am. Within a half hour I was back in my car driving home. One secured a coveted blue ray player of which there were only four units to begin with. What I found unusual was that Wal-Mart did not have the MP3 players in the electronics department, but were in the auto department. When I arrived and had paid for my purchase, these highly sought after MP3 players were still available because nearly everyone thought they were sold out because they could not be found in the Electronics department.

posted by William Larsen @ 8:20 AM