Will Black Friday’s slump change the promotional calendar?

It’s easy to be snarky and say “Is this when we get to say ‘we told you so’?” but that’s not terribly productive.

This is an incredibly unfortunate situation. If the days AFTER Christmas become the most important shopping days of the season, then truly, we are in a terrible retailing situation. Sociologically, it’s less troubling to have people out shopping on December 26 through 28 than it is on Thanksgiving, but as a person whose lifelong roots are in retail, it’s far more disturbing.

That puts us just inches away from deals starting at 2 P.M. on Christmas Day. As a Jewish person, that just threatens my annual Chinese food fest. As a student of sociology, it’s worrisome.

As retailers, we have to now think about a whole new selling and buying cadence. It’s a tricky one. Ideally you’d want to minimize inventory investment so that you’re not trapped into markdowns. But with sourcing so far from the point of demand, that’s not so easy to do.

This is an incredibly unfortunate situation.

I do not think that the one-day slump will be an issue for retailers. It is the total sales for the season that matter. A lot of shoppers seem to be spreading out their spending over many days of shorter trips, especially with gas prices dropping. So lets not decide now that sales are down but wait until we add things up in January. I think it should be a better year in total. That being said, we should see great sales promotions for the rest of the year. Shopping late may reward those shoppers with greater savings.

Yes, changing shopping patterns are going to change December’s promotional calendar, but I don’t think there’s going to be an industry-wide or uniform shift to another marquee sales day(s). It’s going to be consumer-led rather than retailer-driven.

Separately, Black Friday doorbusters tend to be loss-leaders, and I can’t see that as a sustainable model for retail’s bottom-line.

Because so many merchants started earlier than the actual Black Friday with their heavy promotions, I feel a good portion of business was already spread across more time than in past years. Going forward, the discounts will continue to be a virtually continuous flow leading up to December 26. Whether this is healthy or not remains in the hands of the buyers and marketers within these merchants. We are seeing more tonnage of product movement at lower selling prices, so revenues are down, however in many areas, actual item movement is up.

Also, since a huge portion of holiday season purchases are actually intended for the purchaser as opposed to being gifts, December 26 may prove to be very successful due to how the date falls this year.

If these numbers are indeed fact, I can only say that the consumer has spoken! They don’t want to be told that to get good deals they must crawl out on Thanksgiving Day or the wee hours of the following day to get them.

And before we jump on the promotional calendar, what does their inventory look like? Did they really overstock counting on these promotions? This story is not over until the fat man gets here.

… and that’s my two cents.

Consumers have been changing the “promotional” calendar for a long time now regardless of how retailers plan their promotions.

The onset of gift cards a long time ago had an impact. Adjustments in Black Friday have had an impact. Online shopping has had an impact and it will continue to have an unimagined impact into the foreseeable future.

While the “deal” may have some influence on consumer activity, consumers will set the pattern based on their perceptions of value. The “deal” is only one of many factors that consumers will consider.

Retailers’ current, vain attempt to stimulate activity through the “deal” while degrading the customer experience may have negative affects on profitability. Retailers that calculate the consumers value equation well by considering all of the factors including experience could have the greatest positive impact on their profitability.

It’s not about one day. It’s about the season. It’s about the economic climate over an extended period of time. The big stores reporting numbers have more competition than ever. Competitive pricing means items may be priced even lower than last year. Black Friday has become a week-long event rather than a big day. Let’s see how it all shakes out by the end of the eyar before we start preparing for the end of retail as we know it.

I am sure the shortfall will change December’s promotional calendar. Shoppers and media critics have become very knowledgeable about where and when to shop. Keeping track of online and social media should tell retailers where the shoppers are going.

There are many important notices that we have from this year’s Black Friday sales reports that need amplification and further exploration. As e-commerce marches through the middle of the the retail playing field, the demand to enhance impulse sales is growing much more evident in the bleeding bottom lines. Even more important is the development of meaningful sales demographics designed to encompass a 21st century retail customer’s whereabouts, wants and purchase habits. As a group retailers are refusing to acknowledge the limited value of 20th century marketing measurement methods and, as we see here, are often surprised with any and all significant result variations whether positive or negative.

Dr. Phibbs is right. The NRF survey isn’t a factual view on retail sales. You need to look at real sales data.

My company publishes the APT Index, which is based on real sales data from actual brick-and-mortar registers. We saw a 3.5% year-over-year decline for the full weekend (Thursday through Sunday), though the rest of November outperformed prior year. So still not a rosy picture but not nearly as bleak as the NRF survey number.