Black Friday shoppers, despite their hardcore stamina and willingness to lose sleep in order to procure great deals, may not be the real winners when it comes to holiday shopping.
With retail stores desperate to rack up sales in 2010, making up for the past few years of lethargic holiday shopping, the deep bargains in the later shopping days before Christmas brought out the crowds. Along with the crowds came rising sales numbers – from 9.8 percent increase in apparel sales from the beginning of the season to 2.6 percent on jewelry items, although electronics only made a small showing at 0.4 percent.
Retailers were offering 30–50 percent off nearly all merchandise in the store to attract the last-minute shoppers, and from the numbers so far, it seems to have served its purpose.
With retailers overstocking around the holiday season as well as plenty of substitute items in stock, history has proven that the desperation to move merchandise at the last minute can provide those procrastinating shoppers even more bargains than the always-hyped Black Friday.
Source: Wall Street Journal, December 2010
