Posted on Nov 23, 2007 - 11:51pm by Porter Corn in Economy
Here’s hoping all of you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving Day with your families.
Today is “Black Friday” the traditional start to the holiday shopping season. Merchants view this day as a predictor for the coming holiday season and traditionally is the day that puts merchants in “the black”!
I’ve been running around Atlanta Georgia all day making deliveries and have been noticing the lack of traffic to the malls, to Wal-Mart and Target. Several WM’s that I passed had maybe 30 - 40 cars in an otherwise empty parking lot the entire day.
I was down in East Point around one of the large shopping plaza’s off of I-285. The Police were out in force, parked on the medians to the entrances to control traffic, but there was no traffic to control.
Traffic on I-285 at mid day and again at 5 pm was as if it was 3 in the morning. I’ve never seen it this light.
If this is an idication of what this season is going to bring, we’re all in trouble. No shoppers, no freight. It’s already beginning to slow on the border.
At the moment, I am sitting in the Flying J in Carnesville Georgia. There is exactly a dozen trucks in here. At least some got home for the holidays.
Scales are closed, it’s a good time to be out here running.
Take care out there. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
And oh yeah!
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Well maybe folks are like me. I’ve only made about 75% this year as compared to last year but my expenses (fuel mostly) are greater. Maybe they don’t have the money to spend.
Hogs? The wife watched the Texas’s play. (A&M vs UT).. I glanced in occasionally. If either one won (and one did) then I was happy. A Texas team won.
That’s everyone’s fear. We’re not doing as well as last year either.
We had stores open at 4am around here. That’s insanity!
Some were open at midnight if you can believe that.
I know traveling across Louisiana Wednesday night, fools were camped out at Best Buy stores. That’s insanity.
I was off for 12 days so that has cut into my shopping funds. And like you Mickey, my income is down about the same.
Not that you’d know by reading in the news media but:
“According to ShopperTrak RCT Corp., which tracks sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets, total sales rose 8.3 percent to about $10.3 billion on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, compared with $9.5 billion on the same day a year ago.”
This would be good news dontcha know. Can’t have good news. So it’s not news.
I thought it was very strange. The news outlets reporting record crowds in the malls but in Atlanta, the parking lots told a different story.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to know who or what to believe these days.
I’m doing all my shopping online this year though. I did it last year, and was sold on the concept.
As a lifelong Mizzou fan, I would also like to congratulate and thank Arkansas for allowing Mizzou to take over that NUMBER 1 spot!!!!
Mizzou #!? My sister will like that!