Nationally, retail sales decreased for Black Friday this year by 7%. Although there was a decrease in people going out to stores on Black Friday, sales online increased by 14% since last year. The main reason for the decrease in retail comes from consumers waiting to buy products on other major sale days such as Cyber Monday. Also, some stores offered sales the week before Thanksgiving and even doorbusters on Thanksgiving. This trend may continue over the years as people feel less of the need to go into stores for sales. This is safer alternative to the normal violent mobs of shoppers. Due to this increase in online sales, Thanksgiving traffic decreased 5% from last year, and led to fewer disastrous events within malls. This is great to hear as this allows most people to focus on spending time with family during the holidays, not violently handling a fellow consumer over a pair of shoes or a 55 inch flat screen.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/30/news/economy/black-friday-nrf-estimate/index.html
Although Black Friday has a been a favorite annual event for Americans, I think that it takes away from Thanksgiving. Some stores are open at 6 in the evening on Thanksgiving day, so instead of having dinner with their families, people rush to buy material things.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above comment, and one should not forget that by people wanting to purchase things on Thanksgiving, more employees are forced to work on a day that should be devoted to time with friends and family. Even though Black Friday is an annual tradition, the increase of safety with cyber sales may cause people to stop shopping on this chaotic day in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe opening of stores on Friday took away from the doorbusters on Black Friday. And as online shopping seems to be becoming more and more practical, people turn towards that rather than packed stores.
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