Black Friday with Shades of Grey
Some people say that the term “Black Friday” got started in Philadelphia back in the 1960s. And no surprise, it originally referred to the difficulty both pedestrians and drivers had negotiating the heavy traffic patterns created by holiday shoppers.
More recently, though, Black Friday has come to symbolize the first big shopping day of the holiday season – when ardent bargain seekers have been known to brave both the cold and dark of night to be among the first to storm the doors of many a well-known big box store. With significant deals on electronics, house wares, designer clothing and virtually everything in between, Black Friday has traditionally been a bargain hunter’s paradise; as well as a retailer’s saving grace. That is until 2008, when the holiday shopping season kicked off just weeks after the global financial crisis started. Sure, that put a major wrench in the works, but some of the numbers might surprise you.
Even with fear, uncertainty and doubt (a.k.a. “FUD”) hanging over the heads of most consumers, the National Retail Federation (NRF) reported that more than 172 million shoppers still managed to visit brick and mortar stores and websites from Thanksgiving Day 2008 to the following Sunday. Incredibly, those numbers were up some 25 million more from the previous year. Yet, even though consumers spent nearly 8% more during that four-day period than in the previous year, overall sales for the entire shopping season were down 3.4 percent – the lowest since the NRF began keeping such records.
So following the lead of any die-in-the-wool optimist, this year has got to be better, right? Well, while retailers are expecting a big day on November 27th (this year’s official Black Friday), economists (also too, pragmatic retailers) will more than likely advocate caution: Consumers may be less cautious than last year, but they’re still plenty scared.
And even if the 2009 Black Friday numbers are big, last year’s count confirms that one big day does not a strong holiday shopping season make. So before we put 2008 in the rearview, let’s remember that anything can happen.
