Some stores started their Black Friday sales earlier than ever this year -- and the retail industry expected sales to top last year by as much as 5%. But that didn't happen. In fact, just the opposite happened, as sales dropped from $57.4 billion in 2013 to only $50.9 billion this year. That's a significant drop of $6.5 billion, or about 11.3%.
Why did this happen? Are all the social media campaigns against Black Friday having an effect? Are internet sales cutting into in-store sales this year? Or is this indicative of a public with less money to spend this holiday season? We won't know if that last reason is true or not for another couple of weeks, but I suspect both of the first two had at least some effect.
What do you think? Are the biggest days of Black Friday over -- or is this just a bad year?
If your store really depends on black friday weekend to make the years profits then you need to reevaluate your business.
ReplyDeleteI never EVER shop on black friday weekend!!! There are no discounts on the stuff I want that are enough to get me into those crowds. And the local store don't sell what I want, I almost am forced to buy on line.
And being BROKE does not help with buying crap for xmas. Want more sales?? Get jobs back into the country so I can afford to do so!!!!!