In a year with anemic economic growth , retailers are hoping that dramatic discounts and extended store hours will entice consumers to spend big on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. As Bloomberg reported:
Every Black Friday, there’s a staring contest between retailers and shoppers over price. This year, the stores may have blinked first.
Chains such as Toys “R” Us Inc. and Gap Inc. are opening earlier and offering more markdowns than ever on the day after Thanksgiving, said Mary Delk, a director at Deloitte Consulting. The result may be higher sales and lower profits for retailers over the holiday season.
“Consumer anxiety has resulted in a frenzy among retailers to compete for market share,” said Delk, who is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. “The inducements and deals are bigger and bolder.”
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is promoting a two-piece boys’ sleep set featuring Disney characters for $4.47. J.C. Penney Co. will sell $18.88 digital music players and $30 kids’ camcorders. Black Friday shoppers who visit a Sears Holdings Corp. store will receive a coupon book with more than $3,000 in discounts.
Retailers are pouring on the discounts to attract consumers grappling with 9 percent unemployment and a slower U.S. economic expansion than previously estimated. Third-quarter gross domestic product climbed at a 2 percent annual rate, down from a prior estimate of 2.5 percent growth, the Commerce Department reported yesterday in Washington.
Why do malls and large retail stores get mobbed with customers every year on Black Friday? New research points to several reasons. As Olga Khazan wrote:
When Jane Boyd Thomas and Cara Peters, two professors at South Carolina’s Winthrop University, interviewed subjects for a study on Black Friday, almost all the shoppers said they started their days before 9 a.m., and most spent at least three hours hunting down bargains. But none matched the tenacity of one woman, a 40-year-old named Tracy, who had been a Black Friday shopper for 18 years. Starting her day at midnight on Thanksgiving, she spent the next 16 hours shopping.
“For the person who’s been doing this for decades, this is as much of their Thanksgiving tradition as having turkey,” Thomas said. “That’s why they’re going to endure lines and probably even thrive in the lines.”
The National Retail Federation estimates 152 million people will shop between Friday and Sunday after Thanksgiving, up from the 138 million last year. That means nearly half of Americans will lose sleep, crush into stores and wait in eternal lines in order to take part in holiday shopping. But far from being mass synchronized temporary insanity, the Black Friday ritual has distinct psychological underpinnings.
Other than the chance to get a smart phone for a cent, here’s a look at why we all shop on the same day:
1) The crowds make us happy
First, a disclaimer: The vast majority of the subjects in these studies are women. Not only do women do the overwhelming majority of holiday gift-buying, Thomas said, the stereotypes about men and shopping held true for the researchers.
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