For Retailers, Looks Like Holiday Season Off to Strong Start (or not?)

WP: For Retailers, It Looks Like Holiday Season Is Off to Strong Start
By Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 28, 2005; Page A10


Shoppers did not hold back this holiday weekend, spending a whopping $27.8 billion and setting the tone for what retailers hope will be a very merry Christmas, according to the National Retail Federation.

The industry's largest trade group said yesterday that sales from the day after Thanksgiving -- nicknamed Black Friday -- through Sunday jumped nearly 22 percent over last year....Visa USA also reported impressive sales growth, saying its customers charged about $7 billion on credit and debit cards Friday and Saturday, a 15 percent jump. And Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's biggest retailer, said this weekend that it anticipated solid growth of 4.3 percent during November at stores that have been open at least one year.

But not everyone painted such a rosy picture. ShopperTrak RCT Corp., a Chicago research firm, said its surveys indicated that sales Friday had actually dropped 0.9 percent, to $8 billion.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/27/AR2005112701092.html

When did Wal Mart become the lifeblood that drives this country. You would think that our whole existence depends on Wal Mart sales on Friday by watching how the news covers it. And let's make sure we get some African Americans falling down on film. Every year it's the same story. Trampling pictures, followed by how great sales are going (make sure you get out there), followed by weekend questions that things didn't go as well as we had hoped on Friday. It has become silly.

further evidence of the decline of the middle class?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1951734

If a tiny minority of Americans shops in luxury stores, and the rest of us shop at Wal-Mart, maybe Wal-Mart, unfortunately, is the bell-weather?

... Dollar General/Dollar Tree/Family Dollar/Big Lots - I'll betcha their sales were up! :)

in the area to which I have recently moved -- not Wal-Mart.

decline of our standard of living ... decline in general ...

Wal-Mart = Bu$h

Wal-Mart ... emblematic of the whole culture of corruption, fake reality TV, FAUX sNews, good ol'boy pseudo-non-leader, Bu$hCo 'you are on your own', holding 3 jobs being uniquely American, through the looking glass, haves/haves more, PR'd,
downsized/outsourced/offshored, corporate america over people, Tabloid Nation, etc., thing



"State Department Store"


G.U.M. Moscow