According to the WSJ, Black Friday wasn’t as big a hit as the traffic numbers suggest.
Black Friday sales rose only slightly from a year ago even though more shoppers visited stores, retail traffic monitor ShopperTrak said Saturday, setting the stage for another uncertain holiday season for retailers.
Sales increased 0.3% to $10.7 billion, according to ShopperTrak, which installs monitoring devices in stores to gauge traffic. Traffic rose by 2.2%, ShopperTrak said.
There are some other interesting bits of data in the report. For instance, online sales were up 16% YOY and cell phone purchases weren’t that big a deal.
I found the regional breakdown the most interesting. Sales were up 1.7% in the Northeast and 0.4% in the Midwest while in the West sales were flat and down 0.3% in the South. That’s a reminder that the effects of the recession and subsequent recovery aren’t evenly dispersed. In fact, it’s a reminder that the recovery exists tentatively if at all in certain areas.
another head fake bites the dust, and nobody wants to see the real retail numbers when they come out in jan.talk about bad, glad i don’t own any retail