Ocala.com Bloggers
- Broken News
- Bill Thompson
- Digital Editor
- Eric Barnes
- Frame 37
- Ocala.com Multimedia
- Marion Politics
- Newsroom
- Observations
- Naseem S. Miller
- OcalaDay
- Joe Byrnes
- Read My E-Mail
- Allen Parson
- Running Wide Open
- Joe Vanhoose
- Speaking of Business...
- Dr. Philip R. Geist
- The Bowling Blog
- Debbie Whitten
- The Green Zone
- Dave Rhea
- The Sports Blog
- Gregory Broome
- What is that?
- Newsroom
 |
Search Blogs
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Blog Archives
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Will Christmas shopping season turn out to be a boom – or a bust?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Location: Blogs Sly Comments |
 |
| Posted by: Emory Schley |
11/30/2007 6:05 AM |
Perhaps it’s a cynicism that comes with old age, but I frequently am afflicted with that old deja vu feeling when confronting the everyday world I live in.
Take for example, the Christmas shopping season, which started off with a bang the morning after Thanksgiving. Many shoppers, all across the country, got up in the middle of the night to take advantage of special pricing sales in many mainline retail establishments. Almost everyone in the retail game offered deep discounts, two-for-one pricing, and all types of extra incentives to entice shoppers to plunge wholeheartedly into their first shopping forays of the holiday season. And it worked. Malls and stores were filled with milling throngs eager to snare whatever bargains they could pounce upon.
But as the buying season progresses, I can’t help but ponder if the sales reports, at first glowing with optimism, will slowly diminish into eventually disappointing results at the cash register, in a repeat performance of past years. It seems to me that Black Friday always erupts with great promise, then as we draw nearer to Christmas, the buoyant hopes for a record sales season slowly sink back into the gloom of yet another missed sales record as merchants sadly report the “dismal” outcome on their bottom lines.
Could it be a situation where the big-time merchants are just drawing out those customers a bit earlier, the very same customers who without incentives would have wound up in their stores anyway? And with such marketing tactics, is it possible that the sales industry itself is ultimately responsible for unrealistic expectations of vastly increased sales, by intentionally or not, distorting normal shopping patterns?
I believe the various divisions of the world’s largest retailer customarily take in the far greater part of a billion dollars a day – routinely – throughout the year!
A billion bucks is a thousand millions! Each DAY! At this rate of sales and consumption, how realistic can it be to continually expect ever higher sales and profits. When is enough money enough? Even Bill Gates and Microsoft don’t pull in the green on this scale. I know the little Mom and Pop businesses of the world don’t see all these stunning sales figures in their own ledger sheets, but even so, most of them seem to be doing OK. If they’re not, then perhaps they should consider a more rewarding profession.
I just get a little weary of hearing how well things are going in Conspicuous Consumer Land, then as we approach Christmas, being told to forget it, things weren’t really doing nearly as well as had been hoped.
So pardon me when I barely stifle a yawn the next time I see a story lamenting how “poorly” this Christmas shopping season turned out to be. Such a pity, isn’t it? Kinda makes you want to say, “Bah, humbug!” |
|
| Permalink |
Trackback |
|
|
|
|