James Poulos celebrates Wal-Mart’s decision to spread its Black Friday promotions over five days:
Walmart is actually defying the logic embraced so grimly by Sears, Kmart, and millions of citizen-shoppers. Rather than chumming the aisles for the mother of all feeding frenzies, Walmart is breaking up Black Friday – “trying to cater to the changing tastes of shoppers who no longer find it appealing to camp out in the middle of the night in hopes of snagging a steal,” as The Wall Street Journal reports. Top U.S. merchant Duncan Mac Naughton explained that “people” – yes, even the uncouth and uncool – “want to shop on their own schedules,” not “set times prescribed by the retailers.” Fewer and fewer of them, says Mac Naughton, are caught roaming the store “in the middle of the night.” We should all give thanks that Walmart, so readily and reasonably caricatured as the spawn of Satan incarnate, should use its inexorable powers to shunt critics of every stripe out of their well-worn ruts.
But Barry Ritholtz sees business as usual for Wal-Mart and the other big retailers:
This year, a growing number of retailers are actually open on Thanksgiving Day, including Wal-Mart, Kmart, Sears, Target, Kohl’s, Staples, and Macy’s. (A Facebook page has called for a boycott). Being open on Thanksgiving smacks of desperation, and you should do nothing to encourage the excesses of this antifamily, antifootball behavior. It is all part of the plan. The manipulators at the National Retail Federation and elsewhere work hard to create a sense of consumer frenzy. Thus, I have dubbed the season between Thanksgiving and Dec. 25, “Shopmas.”
Neil Irwin insists that “the breathless hype over holiday sales is misleading”:
If this holiday sales season is a giant disappointment of 2007 caliber, this year’s holiday sales will be a mere $86 billion, not the $106 billion forecast. If it is a giant success of the 1993 variety, that number will move up to $153 billion. In other words, the gap between what holiday sales will be this season in the best-case and worst-case scenarios is a mere $67 billion. That’s all of about 0.4 percent of our $17.6 trillion economy.
So when you read eager speculation about whether this holiday sales season will be good or bad, whether shoppers are feeling jolly or not, keep this in mind: The stakes for the overall economy are certainly real, and measurable — but not quite the make-or-break situation that media hype might make you think.
Meanwhile, Michael Carney is enthused about Bitcoin Black Friday:
Bitcoin Black Friday is minuscule by comparison to many retail trends this holiday season, but has seen huge growth from its humble beginnings two years ago. As NBC notes, the inaugural event saw just 50 participating merchants. Last year, that number grew to 600 official merchants and more than $6 million total bitcoin sales. This year, BitcoinBlackFriday.com founder Jon Holmquist is targeting 6,000 merchants, suggesting that the concept is rapidly progressing from niche to more mainstream. By some accounts, there are 80,000 merchants that accept bitcoin worldwide, suggesting there’s more room to grow. … Bitcoin will represent a small portion of the transactional volume occurring this November 28th, but the very fact that it holds a portion – not to mention a piece of the national conversation – should be considered a win. We’ll know more fully next week how much of a victory for the bitcoin economy this holiday season has been.
Lastly, for some needed context, view the saner, pre-Bitcoin shopping of Black Friday, 1983. And for an even better video from 1987, go here.
The Dish 