Freakin' Friday's Silver Lining
This is the post-Thanksgiving weekend story last year, written almost whole-cloth from the NRF press release.
Blockbuster Black Friday Weekend Sees Sales Near $28 Billion
145 Million Shoppers Hit Stores and Internet, Up From 133 Million in '04Washington, DC, November 27, 2005--The ceremonial kickoff to the holiday season began with a great deal of fanfare as 145 million shoppers flooded stores and the Internet hunting for popular electronics, clothing, and books. An NRF survey conducted by BIGresearch found that the average shopper spent $302.81 this weekend, bringing total weekend spending to $27.8 billion, an incredible 21.9 percent increase over last year's $22.8 billion.
A year later, the retail outlook is a little different with a little less fanfare. I wondered what the NRF website was saying in advance of Black Friday. Do they still want you to believe more people are going to come out and buy? The answer is "yes, but." Instead of "more than last year," the idea is "more than you think."
Here's the pre-Thanksgiving press release, which prepares us for a "big surprise", saying the Black Friday will have a silver lining.
Preliminary Black Friday Survey Suggests Lower Gas Prices, Pent-Up Demand Offer Silver Lining for Weekend Shopping
Washington, November 25, 2008 – As retailers prepare to open their doors at the crack of dawn this Friday, many could be in for a welcome surprise. According to a preliminary Black Friday shopping survey conducted by BIGresearch for the National Retail Federation, up to 128 million people will shop this Friday, Saturday or Sunday. According to the survey, 49 million people will definitely hit the stores while another 79 million are waiting to see the weekend deals before making any decisions. This number is down slightly from the 135 million people who said they would or may shop over Black Friday weekend last year.
I went to Google News, typed in "Black Friday Silver Lining" and a CNNMoney story popped up. A cut-and-paste specialist, I mean, reporter, Julianne Pepitone made this story for CNN:
Black Friday retailers hope for silver liningSeriously, CNN should just cite NRF as the author of the story.NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Black Friday shopping is expected to decline slightly, but pent-up demand and lower gas prices may provide a small silver lining for the suffering retail industry, according to a survey released Tuesday.
Up to 128 million people said they will shop on the Friday, Saturday, or Sunday after Thanksgiving, down from 135 million the previous year, according to a survey by National Retail Federation (NRF).
Now, look at last year's story which cited 145 million shoppers. This year the number for last year is down to 135 million, which means they overestimated last year by ten million or this revised number allowed them to say that numbers would be "down slightly" when comparing it their equally fictional 128 million for this year.
Here's my favorite part of the fairly literal PR-to-news translation:
In fact, a full 49 million people said they would "definitely" head to stores, while 79 million said they would decide after seeing the weekend deals.Imagine asking that many "full" people, "in fact", people full from Thanksgiving, saying "definitely." If this were an election story, and you had this kind of poll data, you wouldn't write that "up to 128 million" had made up their mind to vote. You'd write that two-thirds were undecided.
the latest
latest episodes
This is the last time your money is worth something so by all means go and buy something sensible.
Like freeze-dried food-stuffs, ammo, a portable generator, a gas mask, and a "Willie Nelson's 'Water From Air' Machine"?
Every time I hear the phrase "Black Friday" I wonder what horrible thing happened on a Friday to make it notable. I mean, there's "Black Thursday/Monday/Tuesday", which was when the stock market crashed in 1929; surely "Black Friday" must be just as scary, right? But it's not. It's a day I'm supposed to go out and celebrate being a consumer.
Man, I hate living in a post-industrial economy.
What better way to celebrate genocide than to buy lots of electronics?
Yes @ #3 posted by Egypt Urnash
I love the Wiki...
Black Friday may refer to:
* Black Friday (shopping), the day after Thanksgiving Day in the United States, one of the busiest shopping days of the year
* Black Friday (1940 film), a science-fiction/horror film starring Boris Karloff, Stanley Ridges, and Bela Lugosi
* Black Friday (2004 film), a Hindi film on the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai, directed by Anurag Kashyap
* "Black Friday Rule", a song by Flogging Molly
* "Black Friday", a song by Steely Dan
* "Black Friday", a song by Megadeth
* 'Black Friday' Fashion label, an Australian nu-grave, art-rock and 'all things black' brand.
Black Friday may refer to the following historical events:
* Black Friday (1869), the Fisk-Gould Scandal (24 Sep), a financial crisis in the United States
* Haymarket affair (11 November 1887), four Chicago anarchists hanged, without evidence, for the deaths of seven police officers during a labor meeting
* Black Friday (1910), a campaign outside the British House of Commons (18 Nov) of the Women's Social and Political Union the Conciliation Bill which failed
* Black Friday (1919), the Battle of George Square (31 Jan), a riot stemming from industrial unrest in Glasgow, Scotland
* Black Friday (1921), the announcement of British transport union leaders (15 Apr) not to call for strike action against wage reductions for miners
* Black Friday (1939), a day of devastating fires in Australia (13 Jan)
* Black Friday (1944), a disastrous attack by the The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada (13 Oct) near Woensdrecht during the Battle of the Scheldt
* Black Friday (1945), an air battle over Sunnfjord (9 Feb), the largest over Norway
* Hollywood Black Friday (5 October 1945), a riot at the Warner Bros. studios stemming from a Confederation of Studio Unions (CSU) strike leading to the eventual breakup of the CSU
* Black Friday (1977), Game Three of the 1977 National League Championship Series in Major League Baseball, in which the Philadelphia Phillies lost a two-run lead to the Los Angeles Dodgers with two outs in the ninth inning and no runners on base
* Black Friday (1978), a massacre of protesters in Iran (8 Sep)
* 1985 United States-Canadian tornado outbreak/The Barrie Tornado, (May 31, 1985)
* Edmonton Tornado (July 31, 1987), a tornado touching down in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
* Black Friday (1982), the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands, sparking the Falklands War
* Black Friday (Maldives) (2004), a crackdown in Maldives, Malé (13 Aug) on peaceful protesters
See also
* Friday the 13th
And being that my whole company has more or less been put on part-time, we're feeling more or less "Pent-Up" and our "Demand" won't be to "Offer Silver Lining for Weekend Shopping".
It will more or less be "save what we can for the winter fuel bills, car payment, house payment if we haven't been foreclosed yet and finally if we have anything left over, food". Unless they're producing gasoline fired home heaters, lower gasoline prices only makes going to work for half a day possible. It wouldn't have been worth the effort at $4.00+ a gallon.
This year, Black Friday will probably take on it's true meaning as a lot of retailers aren't stocking, are offering after christmas sale pricing or are panic liquidating their stocks to stay afloat.
Yes, quite. Black Friday will be the working day before the day everyone in my firm believes is the day redundancies will be announced. Which will be black-eye Monday, because someone's gonna get given the Good News.
Which is an SAS-related phrase that I love. Known what I mean?
Agreed, with everything above. Minor issue with Dale's analysis: The change from 145 million to 135 million was actually described as 145 million who supposedly actually went shopping, where 135 million who supposedly "said they would or may shop", so it's two different stats being described, not a change in the one stat. Not that any of it was reflective of any actuality... not sure why I'm even pointing this out... but here I go posting it, regardless...
Stenography is rewarded.
I plan on listening to Steely Dan's Black Friday all day to help boost sales of... Something.
Dale's analysis is great. In fact I'm relieved to know that journalists of the world are barely taking the time to analysis what is barely news. Thanks Dale! Frankly I'm just as sick of hearing people complain about Black Friday as I am sick of the day itself. Give it a rest and enjoy some left-overs.
The only thing that would get me into some stores would be if the Supreme Court ruled that killing some scum trying to sell an extended warranty was justifiable homicide.
Black Friday. Doesn't it simply mean that day of the year when merchants finally get into the black ink? With many bookstores, for instance, it marks the chance to start showing a profit. You keep the doors open for 48 weeks, surviving on the sale of diet books or self-help manuals, either breaking even or running in the red ink, and for the next month you have a good shot at making a living. For some curious reason last-minute shoppers will, in desperation, buy a big fucking door-stopper of a book for grandpa that otherwise would never move off the shelf.
And children's books at Xmas! Whooo. They not only put you in the black, they pay for January in the Islands.
Great story.
The sad part of this economy is that much (most?) is based off "consumer confidence", and so bullshit stories like that need to be fabricated in order to coax some people into an "everyone else is doing it!" mentality.
This year however, things have gotten even worse than in the previous 7 (more layoffs, food prices rose higher, etc.) so a lot of people won't be fooled, since they're just trying to pay for their damn food!
If the fact that Obama won is any indication, its that people are hurting and that they won't be fooled by false propaganda (ie: McCain's campaign) the way they used to.
Happy Black Friday!
Your country needs every man, woman and child to do their duty and buy stuff like there's no tomorrow.
Please?
The irony of 'black' friday for the banking industry - when being in the black is meant to be a good thing!
Rather than the retail trade trying to dupe the naive - could it be a strategy to avoid a 'self fulfilling down turn 'in a volatile market that is leaking like a sieve?
"Black Friday"? Well, tradition says that Christ was nailed to the Cross on a Friday, and for centuries religious/superstitious types would start no new ventures on a Friday, but rather try to end ventures on such days.
A phrase from old-time religion, adapted to the new American religion of "salvation by consumption", or is it "salvation by consuming better things than you"? I'm never sure.
Also, and not to be overly nitpicky, but it's very clearly THREE years later. The earlier example, with the 145 million, that's 2005 numbers. I'm just sayin. So they didn't overestimate by ten million from last year-- we were down ten million last year from 2005's numbers. And who's to say they actually go back and do any sort of rigorous measurement after the fact? Obviously, that would be useful information to have, but that's also more the sort of information to put in the association newsletter than a press release for immediate copy/paste by major news sources.
And aside from that, it's not terribly useful information. Many of the best sales are this weekend, and so it stands to reason that even if 128 million people do go shopping, a modest single-digit percentage drop, we still might likely see a big fat double-digit drop in how much they're actually spending. The xbox 360 has been out for a few years so there's a bunch of really good $20 games, where last year maybe mom spent the big purse getting the system and a couple $60 games, maybe this year she buys three games totaling less than $100. The big screen TV bought with credit is not happening this year for a lot of families. I'd say it will still be the biggest weekend of the year, but that's not saying much. It's not that we're skipping Christmas this year, it's that we're doing it more frugally.
So it's not just bad reporting of industry PR, it doesn't actually predict anything meaningful.