Quote Originally Posted by mbbuchanan
I just don't see how this early on that any report could be accurate. When it is all said and done I'd like to see how it really turned out, it will probably illuminate the path we are headed down economically( or not, just for the sake of uncertain wishey-washieness). The only thing I know for sure is I'm not going to be spending quite as much as I have in the past.
Given that all retailers tally up their daily returns at the end of the day, how would a report on Black Friday sales not be accurate? The bigger picture is not how this Black Friday's sales measured up to years past. They went up, but that's not the point.

The real story yet to be determined is how the whole holiday shopping season measures up. Black Friday is an indicator of where the holiday season is headed, but it's not foolproof. 2003 had record breaking sales on Black Friday, but once the total sales were tallied up after Christmas, that year turned out no better than the year before.

This year's holiday season will likely lag behind last year. For one thing, there are five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Also, retailers had already anticipated the slowdown and cutback their orders. Given these conditions, retailers can only achieve year-to-year growth by maintaining higher price points. That will all depend on how far shoppers deplete store inventories over the next week or two. If sales are strong, then stores won't feel as much pressure to deepen the price cuts given that inventory levels are already low.