As Peter Cohan wrote this weekend, sadly, some folks were killed over the holiday weekend due to what could be easily argued as Black Friday madness. In the zeal for saving a few dollars on cheaply-made, bargain-basement disposable consumer goods, one man was trampled to death as he opened the doors of a Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) store, while two other people were shot to death outside a Toys R Us store. Joy to the world, the materialism has won.

Although I enjoy covering the Black Friday event every year, the industry-made madness has become such an event that actually dumps respect for human beings into the garbage disposal, so that those crazy souls wanting to save 30% on shoes or a flat-screen television can get their fix.

I mean, is this what the holidays have come down to? The New York Times has a decent perspective on this. But, of course, America has always been about materialism and consumerism. Those are the factors that have made the U.S. the reigning economy worldwide. It's a free country for anyone to do as they wish, from billion-dollar companies to consumers with change in their pockets purchasing power. If we're all trained like Pavlov's dogs come the day after Thanksgiving -- credit cards in hand at 5:00am -- then it's no surprise some folks will die for the self-indulging greed of other human beings. Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Riddle me this Applenauts, Mac Geeks, and other assorted nerds: Is dealing with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) always such a royal pain in the butt?

The reason I ask is that my wife and I joined the Mac cult yesterday. We became the owners of a new, aluminum MacBook. My dad -- an Apple fan since the 1970s -- could not be prouder. I, too, was ecstatic. Finally, I am going to be one of the cool kids. I would be part of the revenge of the nerds. My technological joy, however, may be short-lived.

Our problem was with Apple's customer service or lack thereof. For one thing, we weren't able to complete our order on Black Friday because of a technical snafu on the Apple Web site that made it impossible for us to use the company's zero-percent interest financing offer. The rare sale discount we were able to get for the machine evaporated. My wife tried to get a hold of customer service on Saturday, but got disgusted after being disconnected. We drove to Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) to look at laptops but nothing grabbed our fancy even though many of the machines offered comparable performance to the MacBook for much lower prices.

It looks like we may have talked ourselves into an overly gloomy outlook for this year's holiday sales. Maybe that was the plan all along -- to depress expectations so much that it would be much easier to exceed them. And it looks like that's what happened -- analysts expected sales to rise 1% in the November/December 2008 shopping season -- and actual Black Friday results were up 3%.

Granted that's not an apples to apples comparison but the International Council of Shopping Centers predicted a 1% rise in same store sales this November/December shopping season and it has already revised its forecast upwards to 2%. For Black Friday, the 3% sales increase amounted to $10.6 billion in sales.

And there were some significant differences across different regions. The South gained the most, 3.4%, over 2007 while in the Northeast sales rose the least, 2.6%.

Nevertheless, other analysts remain gloomy. ShopperTrak has estimated that 9.9% fewer shoppers will descend on stores this November/December shopping season, producing a sales gain of 0.1%. And Gallup suggests that the average individual will spend 29% less, or $616, compared to 2007.

Welcome to the 87th installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions, and just a bit of everything else when it comes to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) was set to, as usual, be one of the most aggressive discounters this holiday season in order to move as much inventory as possible. Nowhere is there a better yardstick for just how aggressive one could be than by looking at the deals offered on Black Friday.

As I sat down Thanksgiving Day to a little football and a slew of Black Friday ads to study, it became pretty clear that Wal-Mart was aggressive in its pricing, but by no means the most aggressive. Since it seems consumer electronics continue to be a focus area when it comes to holiday retailing, I focused in on that product segment. So, let's delve deeper and really see who was the most aggressive, shall we?

Consumers are delaying big purchases -- big time.

A ChangeWave consumer spending survey reveals a massive breakdown in the willingness of consumers to buy big-ticket items.

In the survey of 2,763 U.S. consumers, completed Nov. 3, 21% of respondents said they have delayed or canceled a major planned purchase in the past 90 days.

What are the top big ticket items consumers have put on hold?

Here's the not-so-fab five:

It's no surprise that autos top the list.

As one respondent said, "Both of my cars have 80K miles. Usually I would be replacing one of them, but I'm delaying that decision due to the state of the economy."

As Black Friday approaches just over a week from today, you may be wondering where some of the best deals will be had. Sure, the usual suspects like Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST), Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) will be offering huge discounts on the largest shopping retail day of the year. This year is different: the U.S. is in the midst of a full-blown economic funk. Consumers are not spending, retail prices are way down and layoffs are increasing. Will you be spending like a drunken sailor this holiday season?

Regardless of the precarious economic climate the U.S. and much of the world is in, retailers are not closing up shop for winter. There are still some great bargains to be had and people will shop for gifts this year, just at a much lower rate than in the past. Just how low a rate remains to be seen, but let's chew on some deals to whet the whistle: Best Buy if offering an eMachines desktop PC with 18.5" LCD monitor and printer for $299 and a Canon Powershot 10 Megapixel digital camera for $199, Target is offering men's cotton sweaters (your choice of neck style) for $10 and a Garmin nuvi 200 GPS system for $119, and CostCo is offering a VTech 3-handset cordless phone system for $39 and a Western Digital portable backup hard drive for $89.

Compared with normal pricing on all those items, there are savings to be had this year. Will you be out in your car early in the morning hours of Friday morning to snag one of these deals or perhaps another one? Human nature tells us that there will be those of you brave enough to trade time and patience for dollars. If you do take in some bargains this coming Friday, you'll be in a select group, as many of us will be reigning in purchases and will be spending extra wisely. The retailers will thank you, and hopefully their bottom line numbers will show your effort this season.

Do you like shopping at Target (NYSE: TGT)? Many people do. In fact, investors are hoping that so many people like buying things at the bullseye retailer that the company will beat earnings expectations for the third quarter. Target will be reporting on Monday, November 17. What should we expect?

Shareholders should expect a drop in the bottom line. Now, did we need a source to tell us this? Probably not. The consumer is starting to feel scared, there's no doubt about it. I'm sure everyone has anecdotal evidence concerning the fear that is out there. Consumers are afraid that the job cuts being reported in the papers will eventually reach their cubicle, so they're scaling back on spending. So, if Target merely meets the expectation for $0.49 per share next Monday, I'm sure many shareholders will breathe a sigh of relief, even though that will represent about a 12% drop in per-share profit.

I'm not so sure Target will beat, though. For one thing, Brent Archer recently reported on Target's lousy October sales data. They missed Wall Street's mark. Since Target beat the last two quarters; I figure we're due for a miss considering everything that's been going on. We shall see. I'll be interested to see how the margins are doing and what kind of position the company may be in going into Black Friday. And I'll be looking at the comps, of course.

Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE: CC) has apparently joined the 21st century as it has announced it will feature the same retail pricing on its website as in its physical stores. While this is hardly newsworthy, it does point out an area that retailers consistently get wrong when it comes to the customer experience: making sure the experience is the same regardless of which buying channel the consumer lands at.

Why Circuit City would announce something as pointless as price continuity across its stores and website smacks of some kind of holiday desperation for the upcoming sales season that has already started in all reality. While it's not the only retailer to have different pricing on its website and its retail locations, it's probably one of the largest.

Circuit City marketing head Jeff Maynard told the AP that "it's no secret this holiday season is probably one of the most important ones in our history as a company, and with these equities in place, we feel pretty good about it." From the translation booth, Maynard seems to be saying this is a "do or die" holiday selling season, and that the company may be in slightly better or absolute worse shape come January, after holiday sales figures have been released. It's hard to imagine Circuit City building any kind of good trust by doing something like syncing prices along its various sales channels, but perhaps that's the only remaining chess move the company has.

With the hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. Government bailouts and the largest mess in decades within the U.S. financial system, will consumers draw back their wallets and purses this holiday season and hurt the U.S. economy even more? Although retailer Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has seen same-store sames growth from the late Spring to now, not all retailers have been as lucky. Sentiment says consumers are leaving non-discount stores and flocking to Wal-Mart and its low prices. No big surprise, really.

This means retailers will have to 1) get aggressive on marketing and promotion that differentiates their brand and positioning, or 2) compete on price and make that known to the shopping public. How about making sure customers know where to find goods (hint: don't change store layouts to accommodate holiday promotions) as well as the old-fashioned value proposition?

Art Hammer from consulting firm QualPro told Reuters that "What we have seen is that fire sales are not working ... the people who still have money seem to be spending the same total, but are getting a little bit better merchandise or a little bit better service. Wow -- heavy discounts not working in a down economy? Sounds odd, right? But that's the theory. So, as the holiday season gears up for what could be the lousiest season in a decade or more here in a month, we'll see if expert sentiment is correct.

A glut of Black Friday pricing promotions, more available shopping days and colder weather has assisted U.S. retailers in bringing back some shine to November same-store retail results. This is no surprise, but it helps the market take a deep breath after weak consumer confidence, a credit crunch that's still in progress and the lack of a "must have" holiday gift item were all worrying retailer watchers a few weeks ago right before Thanksgiving.

U.S. retailers have had a tough year this year (some worse than others) on the backs of spending pullbacks from many customer groups and tightening wallets. So far, estimates are concluding that November same-store sales results will rise 2.5% for November, ahead of the YTD rate of 2.2% through October of this year -- the slowest in over four years.

Welcome to the 38th installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions and just a bit of everything else when it comes down to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

Last week, I suggested a plan of action to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) for the marketing event that should rule all others: Black Friday. While Wal-Mart was busy this year threatening websites and online entities with lawsuits in order to plug leaks, the retailer could have used some innovation in its marketing message and actually driven a whole wave of curious buyers to its front doors.

Wal-Mart needs to be more innovate and far more proactive. Business as usual, especially during the busy holiday shopping season, should be an action of the past.

Today, I'll tear down some sections of Wal-Mart's Black Friday specials and we'll see how competitive it is with the other big retailers in town. I'll specifically look at consumer electronics retailers Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) and Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) (since electronics is the hot category this shopping season), and discount retailer Target as well.

Yesterday, the guesses were lined up about this past Monday's online traffic and sales figures. Well, the traffic figures are official now, and online traffic on Cyber Monday jumped 26% over last year's levels. If consumer spending is slowing down this winter due to energy prices and credit crunches, it sure did not show this past Monday.

Hitwise, an internet traffic reporting firm, released initial figures that showed Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) rise to the top of the most-visited retail website list on Monday. It's interesting to note that Hitwise also stated that this was the third annual Cyber Monday in a row where growth was seen. Amid talk of slower holiday retail sales this year, could it be that customers are moving those purchases from the early morning hours of Black Friday to the comfortable office mouse clicking environment of the following Monday?

Hitwise recorded a 26% increase to the Hitwise 100 Retail Index this year (the top 100 retail websites) compared to November 27, 2006 levels. The largest growth areas this year on Cyber Monday were the electronics and video games categories.

This week's Cyber Monday retail event on the internet is shaping up to be the best ever, according to many retail industry watchers. Retailers Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE: CC) had heavy promotions this past Monday, along with online-only retailers Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Buy.com.

Did possible record sales come after heavy price chopping, or was the Cyber Monday sales push more customer-driven? Heavy discounting already is being looked at as the cause, and although legit, it could cause a large dip in profits to those retailers overexercising the strategy.

Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over, retailers nationwide will continue the price discounting this week (and beyond) to keep those sales pouring in all the way until the end of December. Some retailers are taking the discount versus profit line this week, as 50% off is being seen at many online outlets, which is sure to cause a profit knock at the end of the day.

Is this any surprise? Not really -- loss leaders are always used to hook consumers looking for bargains into stores (and online retailer websites) where they are either ferociously upsold more expensive products or are extensively cross-sold more products than they came looking for.

It's the savvy consumer who seeks out a good bargain and leaves with just that item (or items) that retailers don't really want. But the U.S. consumer is a savvy one indeed, and the more tactics retailers use to push non-bargain products, the more consumers shrug them off.

It's been said that there are no "must have" gift products this year. These products, based on the law of supply and demand, command premium prices. When there is a lack of that kind of product, the only recourse many retailers have is to slash prices to get customers lifting up their spending. Although the holiday shopping season this year may indeed be a large one, will any companies make significant profit? Is there a goal of selling as much as possible while making very little profit in the process?

According to retail tracking experts ShopperTrak RCT Corp., this year's holiday shopping season, which officially began this past Friday, was off to a "very strong" start. To those economists and retail pundits that were buckled in for a bumpy ride to kick off the holiday shopping season, this is probably a big sign of relief. Yes, you can put those Pepto Bismol bottles down now, folks.

Although one report doesn't make a whole season better, the report from ShopperTrak estimated Black Friday sales this year up 8.3% over last year, with sales this past Friday alone totaling $10.3 billion from retail outlets across the U.S. ShopperTrak thought, as do I, that even in the face of rising energy prices and credit tightness due to risky loan defaults and mortgage resets, it takes a lot more than that for consumers to curb holiday spending.

The long haul now takes over, as estimates and details will pour in week by week through the Christmas holiday until it's very clear that the success from last week's Black Friday holiday spending kickoff will last all the way through December. Although today is Cyber Monday (when everyone begins shopping online at work), even online retailers saw excellent activity this past Friday. Visitors directed from www.shopping.com to its merchants increased 61% from 2006 levels, and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) even said that customers are picking up their computer mice more than their car keys. That makes for a nice quote more than it gives us meaningful data. We'll see if it stacks up after results come in from today's online shopping activity.