John Grace - Black Friday Credit Boom #4130

Black Friday-
Retailers earn 40% of their sales in this short holiday season time frame. And many of us never cast a shadow in the doorway of a store. We shop online.
Seeing the pictures of Black Friday, with people pressed up against the outside of store windows, after fighting for space to park, like some scene from the zombie show The Walking Dead, who really wants to go to a store and be part of that?
More and more Americans are shopping online, almost exclusively, and not just at Christmas. It’s easier, the selection is bigger, there’s no teenaged sales clerk standing nearby, busily NOT helping me, and sometimes it’s cheaper. For many stores, especially those that offer little or nothing as part of their unique shopping experience, this is becoming a monstrous problem that will only get worse over time. The current crop of big spenders – the Boomers – increase their online spending each year, but the young set lives online.

As the Echo Boomers take over the position of top spending cohort in the years to come, the stores want to make sure they’re in line to maintain their share. Or go the route of Sears and disappear.
4 Trends to watch:

1. Will in-store purchases increase this season?

2. Unique shopping experiences expected. 

3. How much will online purchasing increase?

4. The multi-channel sales is the wave of the future. 

In August, 2018 the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data released its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. The report shows that total household debt in the U.S. increased by $82 billion in the second quarter, which means Americans now collectively carry $13.19 trillion in debt. One thing is for sure. This is not sustainable.