Retailers Pin Hopes on Black Friday

Despite the country’s economic problems, U.S. retailers may still see high revenues during the holiday shopping season.
Retailers Pin Hopes on Black Friday
11/26/2008
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/sslopp83782345.jpg" alt="A shopper carries a bag from Macy's as she walks down Market Street in San Francisco, California.    (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)" title="A shopper carries a bag from Macy's as she walks down Market Street in San Francisco, California.    (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1832743"/></a>
A shopper carries a bag from Macy's as she walks down Market Street in San Francisco, California.    (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Despite the economic problems facing the country, U.S. retailers may still see high revenues during the holiday shopping season.

The Friday after Thanksgiving has become the biggest shopping day of the year, earning it the nickname of Black Friday. Revenue is often so high that it pulls retailers out of the red and into the black—they become profitable for the year beginning on Friday.

But this year, many are worried that the turnout would be low, and shoppers would be frugal. However, there is room for anxious retailers to still hope for a successful season.

According to a preliminary Black Friday shopping survey conducted by BIGresearch for the National Retail Federation (NRF), up to 128 million people will shop this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

The survey says that 49 million people will definitely hit the stores while another 79 million are waiting to see the weekend deals before making any decisions. This number is down slightly from the 135 million people who said they would or may shop over Black Friday weekend last year.

The fact that gasoline prices have been dropping steadily may give a slight boost to retailers as shoppers find a few extra bucks left in their wallet after filling up. The national average for regular unleaded gas has fallen to its lowest level since 2005.

Additionally, because of low expectations on the part of retailers, many are planning huge sales events to woo customers.

“Retailers realize that low prices will get consumers into stores this holiday season, and this could be the most heavily promotional Black Friday in history,” said Tracy Mullin, NRF President and CEO. “Shoppers who held off buying a DVD player or winter coat over the last few months will find that prices may literally be too good to pass up.”

According to the NRF, the U.S. retail industry is composed of 1.6 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 24 million employees—about one in five American workers and 2007 sales of $4.5 trillion. The entire industry relies on the holidays to bring in a large part of their annual revenue.

Online retailers are becoming an increasingly bigger part of the retail industry, so much so that they have even coined their own shopping day. Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is expected to be more promotional than ever this year as retailers push Internet sales.

“As shoppers focus on price this holiday season, online retailers will be extremely competitive to offer the very best deals,” said Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org.

The increase in online shopping could help the retail industry overall, but it may also cut into Black Friday’s success, as some people will just skip the crowds to shop online. It is yet another variable in an already unpredictable season, which means more anxiety for business owners and more slashed prices for shoppers.

If you find yourself with some time on Monday, log on to www.cybermonday.com, which will be running promotions for more than 600 retailers on Cyber Monday and throughout the holiday season.

And don’t feel too guilty about shopping at work, more than half of Americans with Internet at work say they intend to do some holiday shopping from their desk.