NOVEMBER SALES….Actual retail sales figures for November are in:
Major retailers such as Macy’s, Abercrombie & Fitch and GAP reported sales declines of more than 10% in November….Shops hoped that Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year, would jump-start consumer outlay but industry experts were downbeat.
….ShopperTrak, a retail monitoring firm, said total sales at US retailers rose 1% during the Black Friday weekend but analysts believe much of that gain will have been stoked by deep discounts and will hit profits….The International Council of Shopping Centers, which represents stores including GAP and JCPenney, said sales at 37 major retailers fell 2.7% over November — the worst start to the holiday season in 35 years.
Given this, does anyone even remotely believe the National Retail Federation’s annual Black Friday estimate, which suggests that retail sales over the Thanksgiving weekend were up 20% this year? Media outlets, as usual, reported the NRF’s numbers as gospel, but I’d suggest that in the future they should simply toss them in the waste bin. As near as I can tell, they have no basis in reality at all.
