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Black "Weekend" Shopper Traffic Down 4% Led By Plunge In Electronics
Over the Thursday-Sunday Black "Weekend", Shoppertrak reports that traffic fell a notable 4% from last year with sales up a measly 1% - very much in line with our expectations of a weak holiday spending season. Total in-store shopper traffic increased by 9.4% in the apparel sector, while traffic in the electronics sector decreased by 6.5% for that same time period. Regionally, traffic fell the most in the Northeast (-9.8%) and the Midwest saw the largest drop in sales (-2.9%) with only the West increasing notably (+5.5%).
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NO ONE HAS ANY FUCKING MONEY!!!!1111
Welcome to 2014! Obamacare going to swipe more money from you in the coming year and in the future.
In the meantime the politicians are scheming on how they can take more to pay for their deficits.
The FSA has been expanding, more people falling off the employment ranks and into Social Security Disability and other entitlements.
More government spending going forward.
These results are not as bad as I expected but I think it may well be the "last hurrah" for the consumer with Obamacare killing the patient now!
I wonder what the Thanksgiving travel numbers look like?
you mean not every family has an extra $600 a month to spend on Obamcare?
Also not helping was the weather. As cliche as it might be, most of the country had an artic blast for a week prior to Thanksgiving causing people to start thinking about heating costs. The economy skated last year on warmer than normal temps. This year is not setting up that way.
It's interesting to note apparel, which can be considered an essential item, is outselling non-essential things like electronics. If the gubmint wasn't telling us that the economy is doing well, unemployment is declining and inflation is practically nonexistent, I would come to the wrong conclusion that people are tightening up and becoming more desperate and unsure about their future.
Silly me!
Melly Clistmas Mister Rawrence!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f3M_ulxDtQ
Not quite correct, as the criminals of government and the banksters have money. Your and my money to be specific.
"Is it time for the guillotines yet?!"
Personally I'm holding out for ObamaClause to deliver my Obama flatsreen propoganda machine to sync with my Obama tracking phone.
Doc thanks for my first laugh of the day.
ObamaClause......Haha
Anytime Sloane. I hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving. It was good to take a break from this mess for a while.
Good! Perhaps, the Revolution of the Closed Wallet has begun!
Refuse to spend money on anything except necessities...until the criminal syndicate of Wall Street, led by Ben Bernanke, is prosecuted and jailed. And further, until the TBTF banking structure that Ben Bernanke has put in place...is torn down.
"Refuse to spend money on anything except necessities"
Starve the government socialist monster.
Please say scotch is a necessity!! And more reloading gear.. Please!!
Alcohol is without any doubt a necessity in these times.
I would not argue your broader point, Dog. However, I would say "scotch" is not a necessity....while perhaps saying moonshine is.
Ya know, it's a lot easier to grow "hemp" and it has fewer negative side effects. Just sayin.
I tried it once and didn't like it. It was probably all of the beer and tequila that I had consumed prior that made it bad, but fuck, I went from having my mind not know what was going on due to the alcohol to becoming aware of what was going on while my fucking body quit working. Then I wound up hanging over a fence for about a half hour puking my guts out, then having 3 people help me up some stairs where I promptly used a package of toilet paper as a pellow right next to the toilet because there was no way I was going to be able to walk from the bed to the toilet every time I needed to puke.
But, growing the corn/barley/grain, harvesting it, malting it, gristing it, fermenting it, then distilling it does sound like a lot more work than growing some weed.
PS: NSA, DEA and FBI, the statute of limitations has long since expired on that one, so fuckoff.
"probably all of the beer and tequila that I had consumed prior that made it bad"
Bingo. Try it dry nextime. You'll find it to be quite a different experience.
But, growing the corn/barley/grain, harvesting it, malting it, gristing it, fermenting it, then distilling it does sound like a lot more work than growing some weed.
Well, yes, if you want to do that complicated stuff.
Most 'shiners just dump 20 lbs of cracked corn into a 55 gallon drum, add water, brewer's yeast, and 50 lbs of cane sugar. Stir as necessary and distill off the good stuff after the scum on the surface of the drum falls in. White Lightnin'. Firewater.
170 proof makes for excellent trade goods when TSHTF. Also really good paint remover.
1/3 of a shot in a cup of coffee really starts the day.
I'll allow Scotch if you allow Brandy...
I like Brandy. She's not as dumb as Bambi...
You got it! What about reloading gear?
More like the revolution of the empty wallet.
Are you kidding me? What is happening is the real purchasing power of money is going down so people spend more money on the same or less amount of essentials and have less and less left over for non-essentials like electronics. Meanwhile, luxury items are selling like hotcakes at high prices (with freshly printed dollars). This is not a protest, it is a good old fashioned robbery.
And let the Revolution of Debt Repudiation begin as well. Tell them to get bent--"We aren't paying no more."
"Ignorance of the Constitution and 'following orders' is no excuse."
It was the weather . . .
It was the train wreck. . .
It was b/c people were waiting to have drone delivery. . .
Clearly the weak consumer spending is bullish!!! BATFATH!!!
Man, I haven't turned the TV on in (2) days and I've never felt better!
You still have TV? I gave up on the pay-per-commercial stations a few years ago. Netflix or Amazon Prime are a bargain with none of those irritating, oh so repetitive commercials. Speaking of commercials, I have been wondering about something. How the hell does hulu+ have any subscribers when they require them to watch commercials BEFORE they can watch a program? I signed up for the trial, discovered this absurdity, and immediately cancelled. Do they still have the commercial watching requirement, and if so, how do they succeed?
Easy. Idiots still watch.
Or use the time to hit the bathroom or fridge.
Am I the only one that took out 5 credit cards to max out on shitty electronics that depreciate at an exponential decay rate, and hope I can find a 4th job at McD's to make the minimum payment? Come on people, where's your American spirit?
Send a letter to the Credit card companies thanking them for donating to your Christmas fund.
Tell them that you have no money, that you will not be paying anything back and all the things you purchased fell in the lake.
Make sure you send each letter directly to the CEO marked personal with your credit card number
Enjoy.
In related news, it was a good month for Bitcoins: "BitPay processed a record 55,288 bitcoin merchant transactions, representing a 165% increase from October"
"During the Bitcoin Black Friday event on November 29, BitPay processed 6,296 bitcoin transactions in a single day, making it the most popular day in the history of bitcoin commerce."
itshappening.jpg?
I'm so fucking tired of hearing about Bitcoin on here. Until I can buy a haircut with Bitcoin or something useful, like a tank of gas, and not get taxed or otherwise fucked over, I'm not interested.
Not sure what to tell you. Currency valuations are important market information, even if no merchants in your neighborhood accept the currency in question. I can't pay for a haircut in euros or yen, but knowing how those currencies are doing, especially with respect to the currency I can use locally (USD), is certainly important. In fact, I might go so far as to say BTC is more relevant to me than euros or yen, because while none of them are accepted in my local area, I can at least shop online with BTC.
When the topic is the price in USD of bitcoins, many people here accuse BTC of being a ponzi, pump-and-dump, or "greater fool" investment scheme backed by no real commerce, but when data comes in showing that its use in commerce is making huge strides, the downvotes and "I don't wanna talk about it" comments pop up. It makes me think perhaps the opposition to BTC is not made in good faith or based on rational criteria.
I get annoyed with the hype, too, but I will say I was pretty surprised when a speed shop from which I've bought a lot of auto parts announced last month that they were now accepting Bitcoin...
Hockey stick recovery postponed to next year.
Long landfills
Yet the 'weekend shopping directive' supposedly made retailers year? I think they're all lying.
My computer crashed for the second time..so I am buying a new one....don't want to...but to keep informed I have to....I would think sales would be down with the new costs of living going up...but then again..Americans buy wether they can afford it or not....
Windoze can be a royal pain, why not install Linux?
Fight planned obsolescence. Replace the cooling fan. Everything else will last for a long time.
Yep, yep. Had this here desktop for 4½ years now and only replaced the fan and a burnt out graphics card (I assume overheated and blew up). It's still superior in most specs to laptops on the market today.
Computers usually crash from software problems, not hardware failures. Reinstall your OS first before you buy.
Tricky comparisons this time. First, Jewish holiday purchases already happened before Black Friday so we don't know how the rest of November did. Second, electronic sales could be up in volume and down in price but the profit margins might still be fine or better. I use might for profits margins not knowing if they are or not.
If this were really true and electronics sales were dropping, Obama would allow SNAP purchases at Best Buy and give us a bigger allowance. Bullish!!!!!!!!
The golden goose (American consumer) has been cooked:
all are contributing to the reduction of the invincibility of the American consumer.
Fuck you WS
Hmmm, go hunting or go out and buy some more useless shit while seeing what "humanity" has become?
I'll take the former.
pods
+1...and I don't even like hunting...
It's increasingly obvious that most people who want an electronic device have already bought it in the past couple of years. Only the fanbois are lining up to buy the latest and greatest, and while those people make great TV and PR fodder, there aren't nearly enough of them to prop up the industry. You can see Apple in particular, but all the electronics companies trying to deal with this. I keep an eye on laptops as I tend to be fairly rough on my traveling machine. What I have now I spent $1800 on last year. A machine with the same specs is now around $1200. I could spend around $900, but I need a dedicated graphics card. Now I'm seeing a machine vastly superior to mine for about $1600, but I don't need it yet.
My wife wants to buy an iPod Touch for our son. Last year she bought a 4th Gen iPod Touch (16gb) for our daughter. It was priced at $189, and Target threw in a $50 gift card which we used on paper towels and cat food, so the net cost was $139. Apple noticed this and brought out the 5th Gen. Now a 5th Gen iPod Touch 16gb is $239, but only has one camera. To get the second camera you have to buy the $289 model. To get 32gb, you're looking at $329. So they've reduced the value, raised the price, and created options where you either have to go without something you used to be able to get at the price point, or you have to spend an extra $100. That of course created a frantic secondary resale market in used and overstocked 4th Gen iPod Touches.
It's clever merchandising but you don't do it in a healthy environment. What's wrong with selling 4th Gen iPod Touches, which had what everyone wanted and the price point people were willing to pay? Obviously, from Apple's perspective, there is something wrong with that. They felt they were leaving money on the table. Rather than continuing to get a golden egg a day, they decided to cut open the golden goose. Hey, it may work. I'm not bashing Apple (I'll leave that to Reggie), but they provide the most visible examples.
In an economy where most people have less money coming in and more money going out, you'll see more of the money spent going to clothing and necessities, and less of the pie going to electronic doo-dads. So you'll see more finagling among the electronics vendors, and efforts to boost margins by the sellers of clothing and necessities; probably by shrinking sizes at the same price, thinner fabric and less stitching, inflated rack prices to allow a healthy margin even at "70% Off!!1!" and all the usual tricks you'd expect in a grifter economy.
Meanwhile my 3rd Gen iPod Touch is still chugging along (with no spy cameras or mics to boot!).
+1 Not! I still have my second generation I bought for the wife. I guess my old ass just missed I gotta have the latest and greatest gadget when the one I use works fine.
One better, my first gen Ipod is still going strong.
Do these numbers take gift cards into account? The trend in my family seems to be just exchanging $50 gift cards. It's stupid, I know!
I'll have to disagree here. Shopper traffic down, led by increase in: "I don't want to have to deal with this shit."
It's really hard to beat online shopping with cheap/free delivery.
I went to the local Ace Hardware on Friday and bought a brand new pair of 40 watt appliance lightbulbs for the frig.
Does that count as electronics?
Hope so - it was my only Black Friday shopping, 'cept for grocery store.
"traffic fell the most in the Northeast (-9.8%) and the Midwest saw the largest drop in sales (-2.9%) "
It's the wealth effect. Or is it the wealthless effect?
Do you hear that? That's the sound of wallets snapping close and the whistle of empty wallets.
I shopped at Macys. It was busy, but folks were haggling crazy with their coupons. Shoppers wants the best deals possible. Banksta got the bailout but ordinary folks have to meander still.