Retailers Report Black Friday Bites

[dukes4440]

I just saw the local news report that CNN says that retailers are reporting a 1% drop in sales from last year! How can that be? I've seen more people out this year than last.Maybe less profit cause of more loss leaders this year? Whatcha think?

[ebony0421]

I wonder if the retailers had more of the big ticket items would that now be the report. Some stores didn't have enough items to really catch a persons eye. If they have a few big sales in the coming weeks, things may get a little better for them.

[ColleenzKids]

Doesn't surprise me...

 

The stores weren't NEAR as full as they were the last several years. I even noticed traffic and parking weren't the problem they usually are.

 

I chalked it up to the cold weather, and the threat of a bad storm..(that we didn't get)

 

Who knows? I know I was broke my 11am! LOL

[LadyPhoenix]

dukes, I believe that to be true. The cheapest items available FIRST on BF are always the doorbusters...but that is a marketing ploy to get the customer INSIDE the store. If all the buy IS the doorbuster(s), that's a loss in profit. And if they don't get in on time, and walk out the store purchasing nothing, that's a BIGGER loss.

 

This is who we are. (Frank Black, "MillenniuM")

[dukes4440]

Doesn't surprise me...

 

The stores weren't NEAR as full as they were the last several years. I even noticed traffic and parking weren't the problem they usually are.

 

I chalked it up to the cold weather, and the threat of a bad storm..(that we didn't get)

 

Who knows? I know I was broke my 11am! LOL

 

AMEN! Except it was 5:01am here!

[alimfp]

Well gee, maybe if they had more of the items that were GOOD deals, some of us would have attempted to get them. Not saying me specifically, but others. I noticed various members on this board but also people at the store I shopped at saying they would have tried for X item if they hadn't had to have been at the store 12 hours prior to opening to get X item (talk about a run on sentence, lol).

[leefamily23]

I never once had to really look for a parking spot. The crowd levels over-all really seemd low. My sister and I kept attributing it to the weather (it was only in the teens w/ a windchill below zero-and they were forecasting terrible snow-which didn't hit until much later than they said). Maybe it was really that the sale items just weren't that great.

[txguy]

The stores around here were packed as always my wife and mother went to the stores and left a few due to very long and slow lines. I think stores would be better off beefing up their online sales capabilities and letting people buy stuff online. The stores who do that in the future will be better off than doing the in store sales, don't have to pay for associates to work more hours operating costs of opening up earlier and running later.

 

Looking at how bad BB's site was doing on Thanksgiving day should show companies how not to run an online sale. Didn't get anything I wanted from the site and wasn't going to waste time going to the store and dealing with lines. There'll be more sales before the holidays hit.

[HollyBerry]

You know I waited at Best Buy at 4am. Of course I knew we were not going to get the big ticket items. I thought for sure there would be good sales on games, movies, and music.

 

This was not the case. In fact at my Best Buy, nothing was even marked for sale. It was stupid. So we left and went elsewhere.

[nat1jen]

I saw a report on either Fox or CNN last night that internet sales are up by something like 70% and that the retail store sales were flat. They are expecting the best online shopping sales to be on Monday when everyone is back at work. They think that people will order their Christmas presents on-line at the office.

 

Hollyberry, sorry that you waited in line and got up so early for nothing! That would really tick me off. I went to our local Target at about 5:30 PM, and I was able to find everything that I wanted from the sales circular--toys, games, dvds, cd's,clothing, etc. They had several dvd's for $5.88, and several choices of TV show seasons for $17.88.The employees were continually re-stocking the shelves. I just wish that Target would price match like Wal-Mart. But, I despise Wal Mart. I figure that in the long run I end up saving my time and gas by shopping Target.

[Mommie2one]

The toy sales (GOOD toys sales) weren't there this year. I wasn't impressed with them and pretty much had to pay regular price for items since they weren't competitive enough and /or had them on sale. Big ticket items were there, just not a big variety of toys and toys of different age groups. I think that could be a reason. My daughter is 10. Most toys on sale this year were for toddlers. Very few "older" toy deals

[queenofshopping]

The toy sales (GOOD toys sales) weren't there this year. I wasn't impressed with them and pretty much had to pay regular price for items since they weren't competitive enough and /or had them on sale. Big ticket items were there, just not a big variety of toys and toys of different age groups. I think that could be a reason. My daughter is 10. Most toys on sale this year were for toddlers. Very few "older" toy deals

my thoughts exactly! i even told my neighbor, who has a 2 yo, when i was reading off from gottadeal, that she was lucky as most of the toys on sale were things she might want, but i didnt see any good deals on things like power rangers or transformers that i needed to get

[Mommie2one]

Thats the reason I was nearly done when BF came around. From the ads posted here I knew I wasn't going to be buying much toys. The weekly ads seemed better for me this year than BF. I am offically don't now with my daughter. Picked up a few things on BF, but not much. Of course I was able to finish my nieces and nephews which their ages run from 1yrs old - 6yrs old. Plently for them!

[WonderWmn999]

The toy sales (GOOD toys sales) weren't there this year. I wasn't impressed with them and pretty much had to pay regular price for items since they weren't competitive enough and /or had them on sale.

I agree. As a parent of 4, I'd say that 99% of what they want for Christmas was not for sale on BF.

[queenofshopping]

i wonder if that report includes walmart...they do tend to do their own thing...seems like if anyone saw an increase it would have to be walmart, given the drastic improvement over bf 2004 which was a dud for them

[scarface]

yeah i said this in another thread of the loss of 1%. And i saw when i went back out to the mall around 6pm that it was dead. I guess everyone just went out for the doorbusters and that was it.

[Guest general41391]

1% is not that bad.

[donny2001]

Honestly I think the sales this year (For me) were pretty dull. For the past 6 years I am always at Best Buy around 3 A.M. to buy something, and then Im off 2 the other stores. This year, Best Buy was my LAST store to go to, and that was 2 price match an Ipod alarm clock I wanted, I bought a super great laptop in July for $530 (After rebates), and then last week doubled my ram in it for another $40, and got 18 mths for paying it off. Every year, Id go to Menards right after Best Buy (Say around 6:00 or 6:30), then try to get some leftovers at Target, but that wasn't the case. All the places I mentioned, minus Best Buy the lots seemed like they were full when I'd get to the store, but I was only looking at the back of the lots where employees park. The rest of the lots were normal everyday shoppers and the bargain hunters avoiding the Walmart, Ciruit Citys, and Best Buys. O well just my 2cents.

 

Hopefully next year though I will return to Best Buy and stand in line on November 24, 2006.

 

DON

[queenofshopping]

ah, just as i suspected: a different story for walmart:

 

(from cnn.com)

 

The holiday season's first major shopping day got off to a relatively flat start compared to a strong 2004, despite special promotions, discounts and expanded hours, according to figures released Saturday.

 

But Wal-Mart Stores, the nation's largest retailer, said that its sales were strong the day after Thanksgiving, coming in above its own forecasts.

 

& farther into the same story:

 

For its part, Wal-Mart estimated that November sales rose 4.3 percent at its U.S. stores open at least a year, a key retail measure known as same-store sales. The figure was toward the high end of its forecast for 3 percent to 5 percent growth.

 

read the whole thing here

[dswright]

Until I read the whole report-I thought it may have been a combo Friday and Saturday number.

 

The 2 main shopping areas around here were both beyond parking capacity between 7 and noon on Friday. The mall lot was overflowing as people were jumping curbs and parking on grass-others were parking in church lots across the street and crossing a 7 land road to get in the mall.

 

I revisited those areas again on Saturday and would say that those same areas had less traffic than a normal Saturday.

 

Another issue is that almost everyone is reporting something they wanted and did not get because it was out of stock. If the stores had items in stock that we wanted, their sales would have gone up proportionately.

[blackrozes]

Well BF was a bust for me. I know we went to Best Buy first, got there at 3:30am and they only brought in 40 items of the big things so we didnt get what we wanted either. After that the big part of the line left as well. PPl go there for the stuff they have in the ad, then buy more when they have to wait to check out. If the store runs out of the ad items then there is not need to go into the store anyways.

[queenofshopping]

Well BF was a bust for me. I know we went to Best Buy first, got there at 3:30am and they only brought in 40 items of the big things so we didnt get what we wanted either. After that the big part of the line left as well. PPl go there for the stuff they have in the ad, then buy more when they have to wait to check out. If the store runs out of the ad items then there is not need to go into the store anyways.

 

i was just thinking that that's why bb & cc may have suffered - $#&!@ laptops (or lack thereof)

[cpg117cg]

I felt the stores were busier during the Veteran day sales. The malls were packed that weekend and it looked like people were really shopping. I also feel the sales were the same except for the doorbusters. We got a late start, 7 instead of 6 but got a perfect parking spot. When we left at 1 there were still plenty of parking spots to be had. It looked to me like most of the people out were looking for a great bargain or just out for awhile but not doing serious shopping.