More on Black Friday

A friend just sent this: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304281004579217863262940166

So folks are stressing and fighting over what is likely phantom discounts anyway.

After working at a discount e-commerce site, I know that some consumers care more about the "% discount", rather than the final price (or even the actual use of the product!). So they fall into the trap. It's probably better to know what max price you will pay for item X, and just pick the nicest one that qualifies. The MSRP may suggest relative quality, but that's about it. My econ prof said that $, not %, counts in the end; a cheap toy may be 80% off, but if that only means $3 more in your pocket, it's really not that impressive. And of course it depends if the full price is reasonable or artificially marked up as the article said. But the majority of consumers are not that econ-finance savvy, and probably don't consider these factors in the heat of the moment.

I just fear that as long as real wages stagnate, the wealth gap widens, and purchasing power wanes (due to higher housing, medical, education, & energy costs), people will find it harder and harder to maintain or increase their consumption (despite all the marketing messages and social pressure to do so). Robert Reich said that these trends have been around since the 1980s, but the US middle class made up for it with home equity and consumer credit (to the benefit of Wall St.). Now that loans are getting harder to come by, and of course curbing consumption is out of the question, the stakes become even higher to secure "deals". That could change the shopping psychology and make B.F. pandemonium and conflict more likely and serious going forward. It's like NFL stadium violence - is it any surprise that it is likely correlated with soaring ticket prices and overall "cost of fandom"? When you squeeze and raise the stakes on people, of course they are going to react badly when they feel like they are not getting their money's worth.

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Happy Thanksgiving dude :)

It's always kind of baffling to me seeing these kind of "is X good for society" emails, because ultimately there is no benevolent overlord responsible for arbitrating this kind of thing. It's just ... game theory, lots of individuals trying to maximize their own whatever (sometimes profit, sometimes happiness, sometimes self-satisfaction).

Black Friday is an interesting concept. My basic mental model is that initially it was just a naturally-big shopping day, and (given retailers' low margins) the first day that retailers showed a profit for the year. Then retailers started competing for shoppers, and because their main method of competition was "sales" ... here we are.

Obviously you know that sales and coupons were the old-school form of price discrimination, before the internet and quants like you figuring out how to get every dime out of the customer ;) But now it's just old-school prisoner's dilemma, with every retailer defecting and offering sales. This year they're especially screwed, because JCP is desperate to sell off the old Ron Johnson-era merch and is undercutting everyone. It's straight-up race to the bottom, where half these guys will be out of business in 3 years and the rest will be lucky to survive 10. 

They're not doing it because it's good for the country or the culture. They're doing it because, like a heroin addict that hasn't gotten a hit in a while, momma needs that holiday shopping boost, and they'll do *whatever* it takes to get it. Some trickery, some desperation, but this is what giant corporations look like when they die. Like those images of a dinosaur trapped in a tar pit, trying to get out, every struggle dragging it deeper into the black ooze.

What we're seeing is the end of retail, and this and the next few Black Fridays are going to be ground zero for that shit. Loot what you can :)

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Thx J, same to you.

Even though B.F. is not a top-down, command economy program, I still think it is valid to evaluate the consequences. If we don't do that, then how can we ever know if a change is needed? Yes, game theory can accurately describe and predict players' actions given a set of conditions, but to me that kind of abstracts the situation as if we were just "rats in a maze". B.F. is about more than transactions. I wanted to consider the human side and social costs, because it's easy to take them for granted when all we see are the cool items, big crowds, and blowout prices in the media. As you said, if these dinosaur retailers are caught in a suicide spiral race-to-the-bottom, then the poor decisions that contributed to that situation will eventually hurt millions of shareholders, employees, and society as a whole (less tax collected, more pressure on social services).

Negative industry trends aside, is B.F. the best method for buyers and sellers to achieve their seasonal goals? As recently as the 1990s, B.F. wasn't even the heaviest US shopping day (that was reserved for the Sat before Xmas, for gift procrastinators LOL). Some limits were still respected. But as you said, companies are locked in a fierce rivalry, and some "innovators" thought to exploit B.F. more. I wish customers would push back and say, "I don't care how big your sale is. The holidays are for spending time with loved ones and being good to one another, not fighting for a spot in line at 3AM just to get an Xbox. It's not right to encourage rabid consumerism and make your employees work these crazy hours either." If we collectively protest and boycott, change will come, like apartheid in SA and cigarettes in the US. Unfortunately there haven't been many big success stories of corporate boycotts recently (they defeated the labor movement, and they know how to diffuse grassroots protest too). But it's American tradition: the Boston Tea Party was a boycott of sorts by colonial merchants getting squeezed by the East India Company. So going back to B.F., unfortunately there won't be boycotts because some customers will likely "cross the picket line," lusting after deals.

I am not that familiar with the JCP case, but didn't Johnson try to make the company more upscale and resist coupons/discounts? Obviously that didn't work and they are now making a big reversal, but JCP is not a leading retailer (it's $12B annual US revenue is 16% the size of Target's). So I don't think they are driving B.F. trends, but they probably will be gone in 3 years as you said (Sears too). However, predictions of retail's demise could be exaggerated (or at least premature). In the Bay we are surrounded with innovation, disruption, and e-commerce, so that could bias our perspective, because US e-commerce is still only 6% of total retail sales in 2013 (and the biggest category is travel, because it is expensive and there isn't really a retail equivalent after the death of the travel agency). Goliath Amazon still has less revenue than Target. Shopping is still a communal, visceral experience that e-commerce and social media haven't fully supplanted yet (some fun, scientific reads on the subject if you're interested: link). Even if Amazon develops cost-effective same-day delivery, many people will still go to the big box or the mall because it offers a value proposition that online doesn't exactly match. Yes brick-and-mortar retail is inefficient with its labor, rent, and overhead, but customers still demand it.  

http://ycharts.com/indicators/ecommerce_sales_as_percent_retail_sales
http://www.statista.com/statistics/191145/travel-e-commerce-sales-in-the-united-states-since-2002/
http://trends.e-strategyblog.com/2013/04/25/american-retail-ecommerce-sales-by-product-category/10687

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I'm sure some of you saw this too, but Black Friday isn't even a good predictor of holiday sales: 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/the-economic-case-for-ignoring-black-friday/281926/

So the whole thing is kind of a waste of time from the perspective of the economy; people are going to spend what they spend over the holiday period, and black friday can only take from that pool, not get consumers to spend more.

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Thx, A. I agree, B.F. just accelerates and concentrates purchases, but then many folks will run out of cash/energy afterward and not shop much more for the rest of the season (like a hangover). If companies want to keep pouring gasoline on the fire and make B.F. more and more of a ludicrous spectacle where the worst of human nature and American "culture" is on display, then I wish gov'ts would pass laws requiring retailers to fit the bill for the extra police, paramedics, and others who have to work overtime, manage the crowds, and respond to shopping-related incidents. Maybe that would change their P&L calculus.