All malls are turning into 99 cent stores. Everything will be slashed 50-80% off cos retailers are going out of business and/or unload inventory to pay off creditors with whatever they can. People will buy perceived cheapness and end up with a garage full of socks and gloves.
I also noticed packed malls/stores in SiliconValley area, and I think some it is because retailers are offering 50-60% deals plus an extra 15-20% if you use their charge card. No retailer wants to get stuck with excess inventory, so they are aggressively discounting and promoting even before Black Friday kicks off holiday shopping season.
I've seen the same thing. Some real deals. This means job cuts are next as they need to get leaner and meaner as always. A lot of fear from general business is not good.
I'm not sure what you guys are expecting. Yes, you have heard over and over how this season will be a catastrophe, worst ever on record, etc. But that doesn't mean sales will be down 30% or something. If you look at forecasts sales growth will probably be close to flat or -2% at most. Why would this translate to empty malls? To me, 0 to -2% growth doesn't really seem like a catastrophe at all - unless we are all leveraged to the hilt, of course. Which we are. Personally, we (by which I mean my wife, of course) are going to be buying the same number of things. It's not like the extended family is any smaller. We will however be spending significantly less money, because we are shifting towards lower priced useless crap from China as opposed to higher priced useless crap from China.
That's why. All the men were home watching the games and the women went out and did what they do best....spend their husbands money.
Don't you love 'patriotism' in the US, everyone guilty if they don't pratice it themselves and often games of one upmanship occur - 'I'm more of a patriot than you'. My flag is bigger and newer than yours etc. So talk about the masses being conned by corporate america hijacking the word (same companies mind you that have been shipping American jobs offshore for the last decade). So when I here the phrase 'go shopping and be a patriot' I cannot stop laughing because it's got NOTHING to do with patriotism. They're just brainwashing the public to make money, sadly many believe them.
I past Best Buy in West Paterson (North Jersey) one hour ago. A line of 15-20 people had formed outside the store. I have no idea what time the store opens or what they are giving away.
Same at Clearwater Florida Circuit City and CompUSA stores... about 12 or more people apparently lined up for the Black Friday sale starting no doubt at 6:00am or something. The last time I did something like that was for Rolling Stones concert tickets in 1972!
On "free dumping" day at the county landfill, there was a line literally a mile and a half long. I turned around and went home. It only costs four bucks to dump a regular load and you don't have to wait at all, but people will wait in line for hours if they can get it "free". People are crazy.