November 27, 2005
Once you go black you don't go back...
By Jim Dallas
Kevin Drum on the increasingly-common references to the Friday after Thanksgiving as "Black Friday."
I was beginning to wonder about this myself; it seemed to me that more people were calling Friday "black" this year than before. Based on Kevin's research, it might be the case. And if the trend continues we might as well just all start calling it that.
Incidentally, "Black Friday" is not the busiest shopping day of the year; the Saturday before Christmas is. I guess that would tend to mean that the day gets its name from stores becoming (supposedly) profitable on that day. Such a momentous event, of course, requires a name. And we hear that "Good Friday" was already taken.
Posted by Jim Dallas at November 27, 2005 01:49 PM
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The Saturday before Christmas should be called Bonus Saturday. The day on which the CEOs will be able to determine how much bonus they give themselves while informing their employees that it wasn't such a good year again and alas they will not be getting a bonus and their commission schedule for the coming year will reflect the bad year they've had.
Something odd about the fact the retailers only make a profit after 11 1/2 months each year. Many reasons. Quite a few have to do with taxes.
The taxes they pay and the taxes their customers pay which prevent quite a few from shopping at all until the end of the year. Usually after they've paid off the previous year's credit card balances. And paid their taxes.
The NYT reported that although gross sales exceeded 2005's, the increase was confined solely to the mass retailers who orchestrated an unprecedented advertising blitz the preceding week and opened their stores as early as 5am. Smaller mall-based retailers did .09% worse than last year which probably means deeper discounts over the next week on clothing and the like from those retailers trying to attract customers to their stores.
I wonder if the Friday buying spree will result in an overall increase in gross consumer spending over the Holidays, or just that it's been transferred from later in the season because of the massive marketing campaign.
