Retail Sales Plummet

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The Wall Street Journal, describing this year’s holiday shopping season, has laid out a tale of doom and gloom. Sales and electronics are down by almost thirty percent compared to last year and luxury items were hit even harder. The good news is that online sales were only down two percent this year compared to last.

During the same period last year, overall retail sales rose a modest 2.4%, helped by late-season discounting that enticed procrastinating shoppers. But this year, after a moderate uptick in shopping activity boosted by steep promotions the Friday after Thanksgiving, shoppers closed their wallets and reopened them only cautiously, worried by job losses, a sinking stock market and a recession climbing into its second year.
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yeah i just watched this this morning on cnn while doing cardio, retail sales are down 5.5%, which really shouldn't be a surprise.
 
its weird... but did anyone else apply for credit card specials at best buy and get rejected? i hate best buy, but they had an awesome 42" sony on sale for like 1k$... so i was like fine ill sign up...

i make 43k, pay my student loans on time, don't bounce, don't have late fees and i was rejected...

so umm... does anyone else think alot of these 0% interest specials companies had this christmas were to get people in the store... but to be honest... it reduces their own sales since they are not even approving their own cards for such purchases then complaining about low sales?

on the flip side... best buy always sucks wtf did i go there?
 
Well I see a few things that they are not taking into account. I have noticed that with the much lower gas prices that retailers have been surprisingly fast to lower prices. The prices were horrible last year, so that modest 2.4% gain last year, was likely a large loss when you take into account inflation. The slump this year is likely not as bad as they say as the prices dropped. This means that the stores likely did not loose much as their costs are lower, as are the distributors and manufacturers. Plastics are made from oil and with prices being half what they were, then you see huge drops, the shipping surcharges are much lower too, and with todays 'global economy' this means parts and goods are shipped all over the world. If these gas prices hold then you will see much cheaper food and shipping charges. Most companies have very lean margins in todays competitive global market and lowered oil prices can turn a companies profits from a 3% loss to a 3% gain easy.

I know I did not spend less on Christmas... in fact I spent more and so did most of the people I know... and I live in Michigan (one of the areas hit worse). I personally think that about 3/4 of this recession is caused by the negative media. They say people are cutting back then people WILL. They say the stock market is looking week and people will sell stocks and make it weak. They actually are spreading FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt) as they think it will sell more papers or something. The only thing they put above this is tragic death.

With that said was there really anything new this year that everybody had to have... NO! Was there any reasons for prices to go up... NO! Were people buying things that have been on the market and cheaper... YES! Have retailers stepped up specials do to weak Black Friday sales... YES!. Are budget retailers like Wal-Mart (yuck) becoming more popular... YES! It might be that some of the really high price items are not selling well like $1000+ pieces of jewelry or expensive toys like sports cars and fancy motorcycles. Things like this CAN negatively effect sales numbers in a huge way, but these are not things that are effecting the average consumer or most retailers.
 
Oh and jroe52 has a point. The creditors are hand picking only premium customers for loans now. I have seen many reports near me that car dealers are having to turn away 25-50% of their customers because the credit companies are MUCH more strict. This is like 5 times the normal rate. Not too many people can buy those big screen TVs and Blu-ray players and movies without a credit card either. Jewely and other luxury items have been in a decline for a long time. The main thing you need to look at is the price of electronics are constantly getting cheaper too. Hot items like the XBOX360 are what $100 cheap. Most computer and laptops are much cheaper, netbooks are popular... Heck it used to be if you wanted a cheap computer you could buy an e-machine for much less than buying the parts and building a computer, but the parts are sooooo cheap now. I can put together a decent computer for under $200 that is better than an HP system 2-3 times more expensive. The DIY market has been growing steadily over the last 10 years and is a significant portion of the market now. Flash memory prices are WAY down too. This has made a huge impact on prices of digital cameras and MP3 players... which are popular Christmas gifts. Getting 8GB for under $20 is crazy. Getting 8GB players for under $100 is about 50 less than last year. I think those sales numbers are starting to look great really. Why are the media soooooo pessimistic?
 
and why are tuna prices still so high?

the cheapest kind, walmart brand tuna, used to be like 43 cents, now its 80++ cents....
 
jroe52 said:
its weird... but did anyone else apply for credit card specials at best buy and get rejected? i hate best buy, but they had an awesome 42" sony on sale for like 1k$... so i was like fine ill sign up...

i make 43k, pay my student loans on time, don't bounce, don't have late fees and i was rejected...

so umm... does anyone else think alot of these 0% interest specials companies had this christmas were to get people in the store... but to be honest... it reduces their own sales since they are not even approving their own cards for such purchases then complaining about low sales?

on the flip side... best buy always sucks wtf did i go there?
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Getting a Best Buy credit card is very difficult to do. Basically if you have anything on your credit that's negative you won't get one. If you have another credit card through HSBC then you'll be rejected outright as well.
 
Todd_a said:
I personally think that about 3/4 of this recession is caused by the negative media. They say people are cutting back then people WILL. They say the stock market is looking week and people will sell stocks and make it weak. They actually are spreading FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt) as they think it will sell more papers or something.
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This. I went to the stores on Christmas Eve and 2 things came to mind: 1) I should have shot myself for going out on that day and 2) where the hell is this "recession" they keep saying we are in? All the malls that I have seen out here in Virginia have been war zones and the one next to my house was hard to walk through without bumping into just about everyone in it.

Despite a flurry of last-minute shoppers lured by the deep discounts, total retail sales, excluding automobiles, fell over the year-earlier period by 5.5% in November and 8% in December through Christmas Eve, according to MasterCard Inc.'s SpendingPulse unit.
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According to that, they only asked MasterCard how it was going, not the stores. Does the idea that maybe people are using cash this year instead of a CC mean that sales are down? I didn't use my CC this year and my parents only used it on a $80 item when they bought me $800+ worth of furniture for my house.

If we are in a recession, its not as bad as they make it seem
 
Todd_a said:
I know I did not spend less on Christmas... in fact I spent more and so did most of the people I know... and I live in Michigan (one of the areas hit worse). I personally think that about 3/4 of this recession is caused by the negative media. They say people are cutting back then people WILL. They say the stock market is looking week and people will sell stocks and make it weak. They actually are spreading FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt) as they think it will sell more papers or something. The only thing they put above this is tragic death.

With that said was there really anything new this year that everybody had to have... NO! Was there any reasons for prices to go up... NO! Were people buying things that have been on the market and cheaper... YES! Have retailers stepped up specials do to weak Black Friday sales... YES!. Are budget retailers like Wal-Mart (yuck) becoming more popular... YES! It might be that some of the really high price items are not selling well like $1000+ pieces of jewelry or expensive toys like sports cars and fancy motorcycles. Things like this CAN negatively effect sales numbers in a huge way, but these are not things that are effecting the average consumer or most retailers.
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QFTMFT!

If the media didn't spread so much gloom and doom people would have spend a lot more which would mediate the credit crunch impact on the economy. But because so many millions of shoppers are withholding back, just the sheer number of possible purchases that could have occured but instead didn't because of the moronic media lunnacy is just going to worsen the recession and slow down the recovery.
 
well for tuna... we will run out of tuna/salmon in the next 20-30 years if the world does not change their fishing habits... and if we do not get people to restock our oceans... due to overfishing.

there are economic models on this as well... basically...
1. we currently catch more fish than the regrowth rate... this leads to a decrease in the total amount of fish each year... example (lower numbers to keep it simple)

1000 tuna... - 500 cought + 450 born = 950 tuna... the cycle continues after 20 years you have 0 tuna.

2. what economists state needs to be done is:
a. you need to catch less than the regrowth rate... to create a balance
b. you need to encourage better breeding/stocking to make up for shortfalls on stock

if we have 1000 tuna, when we had 10000 50 years ago... to get back to that number in 20 years... we would have to catch something like this

1000 tuna -400 cought + 450 born = 1050 (increases)...

so if the catch rate < growth rate = more tuna and lower prices in the longterm

we are going to extinct our oceans very soon for major species if we do not change our habbits, not including pollution.

freshwater fish have it much worse, exhaust, dams, fertilizer are creating 3 seperate and major issues killing off eggs and fish at alarming rates. chemicals from exhaust leads to 90% less sucessful egg hatches..

if a fish lays 10,000 eggs... normally 1000 or so (10% I believe) will survive to become a fish of some size... not necessarily an adult

with pollution... 10% of the 10% survive... hopefully with stronger immunities to such poisons lol... but in the end... only 100 survive instead of 1000 (1%)... furthermore they have a hiarchy of pollutants... so they become uneditable for humans

if a fish has 10mg of mercury... and a big fish eats it, that big fish now has 10mg of mercury as well. now if that big fish eats 100 little fish with 10mg of mercury, it now has 1000mg of mercury.

so its basically a pyramid scheme... the little fish only have small amounts of harmful chemicals... however each foodchain level (bigger fish) consumes these... which basically builds them up to harmful levels. by the time a fresh water large fish like a northern grows to an adult... it could have off the charts amounts of harmful chemicals due to the compounding factors.

i miss economics.
 
Steve said:
The Wall Street Journal, describing this year’s holiday shopping season, has laid out a tale of doom and gloom. Sales and electronics are down by almost thirty percent compared to last year and luxury items were hit even harder. The good news is that online sales were only down two percent this year compared to last.
Click to expand...

The only reason I visit brick and mortar is if I want to inspect a product I'm interested in. If I'm satisfied, I'll go on-line and purchase it. I'm not interested in fighting traffic, parking, crowds, check-out lines, crying kids ('lil bastagers) and rude/ignorant people.

I'm glad to see that on-line sales haven't been too adversely affected. I'll fuel the economy from the convenience of my home.
 
DeadSkull said:
QFTMFT!

If the media didn't spread so much gloom and doom people would have spend a lot more which would mediate the credit crunch impact on the economy. But because so many millions of shoppers are withholding back, just the sheer number of possible purchases that could have occured but instead didn't because of the moronic media lunnacy is just going to worsen the recession and slow down the recovery.
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The media may be pouring fuel on the fire, but the fact is that we are in a recession and many people that have lost their jobs don't have the money to spend on luxury items. It's only going to get worse next year.
 
Here's an idea.

Instead of giving banks more $$$ as a reward for robbing the country, take that trillion dollars and give every person in the country $3000 + $3000 per dependant. Somehow I think that if every family of 4 were to receive $12,000 in cash 3 weeks before Christmas you would not only see one of the largest jumps in consumer spending in history (and incidently massive corporate profit jumps, and massively increased employment requirements), but suddenly 1,000,000 househods can afford to pay their mortgages and the banks stop dying from toxic debt.

I really don't understand the idea of giving money to the people at the top of the food chain. It doesn't trickle down, it never does. It piles up at the top. Give the people a trillion dollars and it will flush every part of the economy with all the money they need, not to mention create millions of jobs to support the new production levels (and consequently increase spending as emplyment increases)
 
Nemesis999 said:
I really don't understand the idea of giving money to the people at the top of the food chain. It doesn't trickle down, it never does. It piles up at the top. Give the people a trillion dollars and it will flush every part of the economy with all the money they need, not to mention create millions of jobs to support the new production levels (and consequently increase spending as emplyment increases)
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You're assuming that the money gets spent on domestic goods. Giving people the money purchase a Taiwanese HD TV won't do much for job creation.
 
That's right Nemesis, but instead of cash they should hand out vouchers, checks that people would spend either at B&M stores or online retailers. If they hand out cash to people, chances are they will most likely hoard it or pay off CC debt which wouldn't benefit the economy much, if at all.
The same thing should have been done with the stimulus package handed out a few months back. I am sure the economy would have received a healthy jolt back then. Instead, where did all the money go?
 
Valid point, but how much tech gear is manufactured in the US these days?
If HD TV sets - and all other gizmos we all here crave - were manufactured in the US you sure as heck wouldn't be paying what they charge you now, and you wouldn't want to be paying that much either.
 
Hulk said:
and why are tuna prices still so high?

the cheapest kind, walmart brand tuna, used to be like 43 cents, now its 80++ cents....
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ROFL

Would you believe I had this exact conversation with my Bro in law and his cousin? We work out together and probably eat 30+ cans/week each. Hell, it was cheaper when he lived on the coast and we ate it fresh :mad:
 
Nemesis999 said:
Here's an idea.

Instead of giving banks more $$$ as a reward for robbing the country, take that trillion dollars and give every person in the country $3000 + $3000 per dependant. Somehow I think that if every family of 4 were to receive $12,000 in cash 3 weeks before Christmas you would not only see one of the largest jumps in consumer spending in history (and incidently massive corporate profit jumps, and massively increased employment requirements), but suddenly 1,000,000 househods can afford to pay their mortgages and the banks stop dying from toxic debt.

Give the people a trillion dollars and it will flush every part of the economy with all the money they need, not to mention create millions of jobs to support the new production levels (and consequently increase spending as emplyment increases)
Click to expand...

A one time stimulus like this will not spur the creation of millions of jobs as you seem to think. It sure as hell would be nice to have a few thousand dollars to throw around, but besides put us in more debt and make everyone feel good for a short period of time I don't think this is a good idea at all.
 
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