So once again we’ve been told this year is the biggest black friday ever in terms of sales. Well first off I’m not buying it and I’ll get into that further below, but I had a question if anyone knows as most of these articles are pretty vague. Here’s what I’m wondering…
- Where are they pulling these stats from? Is it from a merchant processor, Shopify, Visa or MC or retail organization?
- Are these numbers just factoring in Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the entire week around Black Friday or the entire month of November?
So here’s my take on this. Last year we were told it was the biggest Black Friday ever. Well I went to a few stores and they were emptier than a regular Tuesday afternoon, obviously more people shop online these but I still don’t buy its the best sales numbers ever. Last year inflation was running 9% and we were told best black friday ever by 2.3% though I believe that was later revised down, same thing that happens with GDP, job numbers, everything, they give rosy numbers make headlines and revise down later and nobody really pays attention.
That said assuming the same number of shoppers went out and bought the same number of items you’d expect sales would need to at a minimum be 9% higher than previous years adjusted for inflation to be break even, you’d need more to actually say sales were better. And this is if we buy the idea that inflation was only 9% which the fed and government told us, obviously they pick and choose what’s factored so true inflation is actually much higher.
I would expect things to be worse this year, we’ve had more layoffs, we now have an additional year of high inflation so people are even more tapped out ie its not just the 3% inflation we have this year if you buy that number, were going on 3 or 4 years of inflation which has accumulated and driven prices higher. We also have record credit card debt, record low savings levels, etc.
I just find it hard to believe this years black friday and cyber monday sales were 7% or 9% depending on the source better than previous years. Assuming they are only looking at the weekend or even the whole week its even harder to believe as in many ways the entire month of November has turned into the month of black friday. Curious your take as well as your personal experience if you’re in ecommerce. My sales were about the same as last year which is great, margins were a bit worse, but we’ve also substantially grown our emails and sms lists over the past year, had that not happenned I’d expect my sales would be considerably worse.
I know Harbor Freight was empty. I don’t think they even did a black friday event.
I know I ordered more this year.
My theory was the with inflation so high, people were not shopping all year and saving up to go crazy on BFCM. My forecast (personally) was a record breaking year due to this.
My theory was with inflation so high, people were reducing expenses all year and saving up to go crazy on BFCM
Bold of you to assume even a small minority of Americans can 1 - be responsible, and 2 - delay gratification.
Why would it not be record setting? Prices at an all time high and people still frothing at the mouth to buy them because they think an actual sale happens at the end of the year. I’ve worked retail a lot in the past and I can tell you most people have zero clue on value of products. Even years ago the top sellers on black friday were always things that were cheaper weeks before that.
Your single experience is not how data works.
Additionally you didn’t cite a single article but instead went on about conspiracy thinking narrative talk.
A single article I found with 30 seconds of reading shared their source and how they collected it. Including the fact that they don’t even calculate brick and mortar into their record sales.
It took me longer to reply than to find out that there is in fact not some mass conspiracy across newspapers to pretend there was a record breaking sales, let alone why anyone would waste the time to invent such a scheme.
We have a small retail store and last week we did $10k less in sales than the same week last year.
Take that for what it’s worth.Why do you think you know more than people who collect this data? Because your gut feeling?
I’m a business owner, and my circle and area is not seeing a slowdown. The economy is rolling.
The only people who don’t see this are Fox News people or crypto clowns.
u/wkern74
Not claiming inflation is 20% though 2022 I would say its probably not that unlikely, my point is when inflation continues running high for 3 years in a row the end result is your paying substantially more for things today than 3 years ago. This year were at 3.3% right, okay last year 8% that right there is 11.3%, then whatever 2021 was. Its not rocket science everyone is struggling, people were check to check, didn’t have $400 for an emergency and all that other jazz the media always reports and that was the case 4 years ago so what result do you think it has on peoples spending capabilities when today they’re paying more for insurance, more for groceries, more for rent, etc, etc, etc
You kind of answered your own question. It can be a worse day, but involve more sales than last year, simply due to inflation.
If people buy 3% less products, but prices are up 10%, raw sales figures are up even though less stuff was bought.
When these numbers come out saying the economy is up 5.3% in the last quarter, it’s across the economy. But much like the S&P 500, it’s WAYYY up for the top 2% (FAANG, etc) and pretty shitty for everyone else. It has to be. Costs are up, layoffs are starting. You can’t get away with living off Covid stimmie savings forever.
And more to the point, black friday/cyber monday are negative economic indicators. When people feel the need to buy everything at a discount, it generally correlates with them having money troubles. I would say go check the history, but you can’t. No one publishes it. You have to go find single data pieces year-by-year.
I don’t know the answer but who the hell is spending money on Black Friday and Cyber Monday anyway? Most of the deals are the same as they always are. $10 off a kindle no one wants. Save 15% on an echo show. $10 subscription to Hulu for a month. 45” TCL for $300. Half of the sales aren’t even sales anyway.
I don’t. I know every industry is different but I deal in a few and business has overall trended downward for most people.
That being said I know Costco has been doing record numbers so big money is still being spent at places.
The small ecom company I work for is down. We’re at about 80% of what we were last year. My ideal number was to be at 103% over last year, but our Black Friday sale didn’t move the needle in the way we were expecting.
I did about the same sales but offered deeper discounts and free gifts so margins were worse and this is with a substantially larger email and sms list
Normalized for digital adoption, no.
Partly terrible economy.
Partly no one believes the fake sales.
I can tell you that from the traffic I saw (on the road & the cars parked at the various malls & shopping centers in the Philly area), there was A LOT less people out & about that day compared to last year, it was more on par with 2 years ago, if not even worse than that & a lot of people were still scared to even leave their homes 2 years ago.
No, I don’t. I believe half if what I see and none of what I read.