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I am very responsible in what I spend and this holiday season, I spent a little less on some people and a little more on other people... overall, I would say its a little bit more than I spent last year HOWEVER at the same time, everyone else that I know are either not spending or spending very little... so overall for my family, spending is dramatically down... I also notice that shoppers are idiots... at malls and most retail stores, 99% of the items were FULL RETAIL price and they were scrambling over it... the other 1% was items most people don't buy or pure JUNK (and still people were scrambling over it)... The only real deals (and there weren't that many) were mostly at outlet malls... anywhere else and you were probably screwed over for shopping there (i.e. idiot shoppers)...
Who is a idot shopper is very subjective:i think. In the end some don't want the hastle of shoping at discount centers and don't have to. Ohter s think anyoen spending as uch or more in this economny is a idot. Others think that only idots shop on black friday and other thing its the fun thing to do after thinksgiving.One man jun is in deed anothers treasure.
not to be negative but, I think they might be pulling this number out of their anus, just like every other number (unemployment,inflation,recession) How do you tally up all those numbers in such a short period of time? is it some big retail super computer I"m not aware of ?
i would be encouraged about our economy if purchases were made by cash, but that it not what i saw. i don't see where people going further into debt helps our economic situation long-term. i see a bigger debt cycle and more foreclosures. it never was about freeing up the credit! foreign countries are unwilling to lend to us so the government is now getting their money from taxpayers.
True, I haven't used or had cash in many years, everything goes on the card. If you observed me using my card you wouldn't be able to tell whether I was piling onto $10K of existing debt or paying it off in full each month.
Cash is for parking at events, seldom-used toll roads, flea markets, and vending machines.
not to be negative but, I think they might be pulling this number out of their anus, just like every other number (unemployment,inflation,recession) How do you tally up all those numbers in such a short period of time? is it some big retail super computer I"m not aware of ?
Their numbers usually differ from the National Retail Foundation which will come out much later. Last year, Shoppertrak had 8.3% growth versus 4.0% from NRF. Also, special promotional periods will usually take sales away from surrounding periods. Shopper traffic and sales had been progressively getting worse until the end of October. Although comparisons with last year were still negative, they were starting to improve week by week; i.e., the prior week had sales unchanged from last year's.
It isn't like everybody has no money to spent or is using their credit cards and will not pay them off. I pay everything with my card and I'm happy to get my giftcards in the mail because of all the rewards points i get for them...and i pay them off in full
The media like to tell us that everybody is having issues...well your home might be worth less than before but if you don't need to sell right now or if you bought it at the right time, your value will be higher than what you paid for it. Only the people who bought at the top of the market and who have to sell are losing money, although it isn't most of the time their money since they never had the money to straight out own it, some just owned 10% and many others never paid anything down, so the b.s. what some are trying to sell us by stating that they are losing $ 30 or $ 40K, is the same as the statements that they were going to flip these houses.....
True, I haven't used or had cash in many years, everything goes on the card. If you observed me using my card you wouldn't be able to tell whether I was piling onto $10K of existing debt or paying it off in full each month.
Cash is for parking at events, seldom-used toll roads, flea markets, and vending machines.
Same for me, I went shopping with $ 2.- in my pocket but I also had 2 credit cards and used them, and I pay them off in full so no pain there and we had a lot of fun buying great sales and our daughter was lucky to get the $ 300.- scratch card which earned her a $ 300.- giftcard for Forever 21 so this was really a great BLF.
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