The one word that describes the retail world coming in to yesterday's "Black Friday" is nervousness. Would the consumer pull-back on this season's shopping and would retailers suffer a terrible fate? Many big name "box" stores have already dropped their forecasts for the season and earnings expectations were lowered. Not so fast.
The consumer came out in droves yesterday, and in some cases even Thanksgiving night. The great Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis was abuzz from the get-go. I know because I was there.
The Mall of America has enough parking to accommodate 14,000 cars. When I arrived at the Mall with my 17-year-old daughter and her two friends, I knew things were good when I was directed to park my car a mile from the Mall and hop the shuttle bus.That's a good start. Before I did park in the remote area, I dropped off my daughter and drove around the parking garage. I wanted to see where these shoppers came from. I counted license plates from 21 different states and many from Canada as they sported the Ontario license plates.
Twenty-one states and Canada. Think about it for a moment: these shoppers basically celebrated Thanksgiving away from home in preparation for the Mall of America visit. I counted five cars from California, three from Oregon, and three from Washington State. That's a helluva distance to travel for a shopping spree.
Once inside the mall, the scene was organized chaos with an air of festiveness. Retailers were smiling and the registers were ringing. The Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) store was giving out numbers to get in. It was an unbelievable scene.
So the early returns will be out next week, but if the Mall of America is any indicator of the rest of the nation, Black Friday may indeed have been quite green ...
Georges Yared is the CIO of Yared Investment Research and the author of Baby Boomer Investing ... Where do we go from here?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-24-2007 @ 12:27PM
sara said...
Hi Georges. The optimism is interesting. Let's see what Black Friday brings a year from now after the mortgages spend a full year resetting.
11-24-2007 @ 12:27PM
nechi194 said...
Umm...I drove around the state of TX with GA plates for 5 years (legally--I was a student/resident). I doubt all of the "out of towners" you saw may well have been visiting family or even living in the state temporarily. I've been to the MoA and it is indeed fabulous--but there is nothing there that couldn't be found at one of the very nice malls in CA or WA.
11-24-2007 @ 1:28PM
Middle-class Jim said...
Family income about $130K. My stocks are up about $20K this year, down about $20K from their 2007 high point. My wife and I will get a Fishing pier/dock at our lake home for Christmas. Our retail gift spending will likely be under $400.00. The economy would sink if they counted on me to spend a thou$and at retail stores.
11-24-2007 @ 1:32PM
joel said...
oh yeah and I bought a custom airbus for my teenager .....:-}
11-24-2007 @ 1:33PM
joel said...
the line are starting at the return desk they just got the credit card statement