Retailers out of desperation are pushing black friday into October!!!!

I say fuck it, why not just have christmas 365 days a year. I find it extremely sad that each year they try to push christmas up months before the day even happens. I find its not even about christmas or giving anymore but more about economics and greed. Thats what it really has come down to. Christmas to me has become just another scheme to make money for the economy, that's all it is.


Stores Push Black Friday Into October
nytimes



STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, On Thursday October 28, 2010, 3:20 am EDT

Attention bargain shoppers! It is October — and Black Friday specials are here.

The year’s most popular discount shopping event, referring to the Friday after Thanksgiving, is arriving ahead of Halloween this year, with some promotions beginning this week and others throughout November.

Both retailers who have had tepid sales lately (Wal-Mart Stores, Sears) and those with rising sales (Amazon, Target) are pushing the tradition forward in a bid to snag shoppers’ limited money. Recession-trained customers are also pushing the stores to offer big deals now or risk losing out to competitors, though there is some skepticism about how significant some of the early discounts are.

The first “Black Friday Now” deals at Sears will be available beginning Friday and Saturday. Amazon’s electronics department will offer sales on items like Blu-ray players and high-definition TVs on Friday, and Toys “R” Us is putting all the items in its 80-page Christmas toy book on sale on Sunday.

Black Friday creep has been around for a while, but analysts say this year breaks new ground: the range of stores offering early discounts is wider, the discounts are steeper and the sale periods longer — in some instances, a full month before the real thing. Sears, for example, offered early promotions last year but expanded the hours and days this year, while Amazon is beginning earlier than ever.

“Consumers have been trained to buy merchandise only ‘on sale,’ ” Sherif Mityas, a partner in the retail practice at the consulting firm A. T. Kearney, said in an e-mail. “Given a limited budget, if retailers don’t capture that first or second purchase, they may find themselves with a lot of inventory the week before Christmas and the need for massive discounting to save the holiday.”

Some shoppers asked for a longer sale period, both for convenience and out of nervousness over crowds, said Barbara Schrantz, executive vice president of marketing and sales promotion at Bon-Ton Stores. After a Wal-Mart employee was trampled and killed on Black Friday in 2008, stores increased their crowd-control measures, but they do not want safety concerns to keep shoppers away from stores.

In some instances, deal hunters say, stores are just hijacking the Black Friday label. Mike Riddle, who started the site Black-Friday.net in 2006 to track deals, said shoppers should not believe that “special” prices for the Friday were necessarily lower than the usual price.

“Retailers are taking advantage of the term,” he said, citing the first Sears “Black Friday Now” circular as “nothing more than their weekly ad rebranded.” Tom Aiello, a spokesman for Sears Holdings, said the prices were not standard discounts; so far, customer response has been positive about this weekend’s deals, he said.

Traditionally, stores used low prices on the Friday after Thanksgiving to attract shoppers, who, they hoped, would put full-price items in their carts alongside the bargains.

In 2008, as the economy sank, the offers became more intense. “Retailers had to go even further in the breadth and depth of their sales post-Black Friday in attempts to salvage some degree of revenue,” Mr. Mityas said. Last year, with consumers trained to look for deals, “sales growth improved, but at the cost of profitability — retailers were essentially buying their foot traffic,” he said.

This year, the pre-Friday deals are expanding more than ever. And consumers and retailers are more evenly matched, Mr. Mityas said, as shoppers demand early and frequent sales, and retailers “aim to drive foot traffic without resorting to ‘70 percent off everything’ signs in the windows.”

For the first time, Target will run a four-day sale starting the Sunday before Thanksgiving in which more than 170 gift items will be discounted as much as 50 percent. While in the past Target has issued a standard circular before Thanksgiving, this year the discounts are deeper, more items will be discounted and the focus will be on gift-ready items in toys, electronics and entertainment, said Kathee Tesija, Target’s executive vice president of merchandising.

“The economy does play into it a little bit — this is always a very competitive time of year,” Ms. Tesija said. “We want them to come to us first, middle, last.”

She said discounts had to be good because shoppers had gotten smarter.

“Throughout the recession, I think they’ve been very thoughtful about how they spend their money,” she said. “They know when they’re getting a good deal.”

Some stores are holding out until Thanksgiving week, like Bon-Ton Stores, which will put most of its merchandise on sale the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

J. C. Penney will run a one-day sale on Nov. 17, adding to the “Biggest Sale of Them All” on Nov. 6, a “Huge Sale” on Nov. 20 and a “Day Before Thanksgiving” sale on Nov. 24.

The early sales extend to the Web. At Amazon.com, beyond the electronics sales beginning this week, the Black Friday deal page will go live sometime around the week of Thanksgiving, offering big discounts on popular products. Wal-Mart’s Web site will also run discounts starting in early November, offering up to 30 percent off 200 items a week in categories like toys, electronics, home and other gifts.

And Staples.com will offer discounts of more than 50 percent on some items like laptops, cameras and printers on the Sunday through Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Even with the effort to capture more sales through early promotions, there is no guarantee that retailers will see a bounce in their bottom lines. In the three years before the financial crisis, there was accelerated spending in early November, said Mike Berry, director of industry research for MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, which estimates total retail sales. But in 2008 and 2009, as shopping creep took hold, spending was weaker.

One explanation is that retailers cut prices too steeply, leading perhaps to increased traffic but low revenue over all. And customers simply refused to buy anything at full price.

Brad Wilson, who runs BlackFriday2010.com, said he expected consumers to have the upper hand again this year. “After an exhilarating late 2008 and full-year 2009, this year has been boring in the ‘great deals’ corner of retail,” he said in an e-mail. “October has started to pick that up, and I think November and December could break it wide open.”

Robert Buchanan, a finance professor who specializes in retail at the John Cook School of Business at Saint Louis University, said shoppers had become smart enough to sidestep the regularly priced goods.

“My guess is that the majority are just cherry-picking the special items,” he said. “They’re looking for the $6 toaster and they’re on their way.”

 

It is the sign of the "New Times". Nothing serious. People need longer paying times or "Saving up" time to buy the items. So, Start Black Friday this weekend till the day before or of Xmas.

Many stores have Lay away now as well.

These are the times we are in. Most people can't afford their life style and have decided to learn how to live with in their means.

Welcome to the Lost Generation. I say a decade before we get things going again but many people smarter than me say a Generation.

And if you make good money, these current times are AWSOME!

Prices have drop'd on everything from RangRovers to Designer clothing!

It's great shopping times, best than I ever remember.

 

Come on, Junior, this is nothing new.

 

Thats what you may think, retailers are getting more desperate each year to push up the thought of christmas.

 

I agree, it's nothing new. I have no problem with it. Retailers are doing what they can to make profits. That's what they do. I'm not going to attack them for being greedy.

 

I remember when school supplies were stocked late august, then july, then june....

 

Who cares? Let em advertise Christmas 365 days a year.

Your thesis is clearly that retailers are doing so poorly that they start advertising Christmas earlier and earlier every year in an attempt to boost sales. So how do you explain this during the boom years?

 

Retailers are worried, they are trying to anticipate a strong holiday. If retailers thought they could make their numbers into the year end and not worry about the consumer they wouldn't have all these huge sales months before christmas even starts. Anyway its all a marketing scheme, retailers love to announce these one day sale events that if you don't go and "BUY NOW" you wont get that great sale ever again, its all nonsense. ITs all marketing to get the consumer to rush in and buy, and guess what the consumer is dumb enough to wait in lines for that deal when in reality that big screen tv they had for sale is only limited to 1 or 2 people, not 264 customers. Its just to get the dumb consumer into the door and for some reason it ALWAYS works. What a shame isn't it.

 

When I was growing up in the 70's, I remember my Mother putting the pumpkin out a week before halloween, thanksgiving decorations after halloween passed, and Christmas decorations after thanksgiving was over.

My Wife's jewelry store is in a large mall. The mall admin is putting up christmas stuff this week.

Kinda makes halloween a blur, and completely bypasses thanksgiving.

She was griping about seeing the Christmas stuff being put out when it's still t-shirt weather here, and not halloween yet. I don't blame her...

 

Why is this a shame? Who is it hurting?

It's called good business. If you own a store and can do something to increase sales, would you do it?

This is business, man. Wake up. There is nothing wrong or shameful here.