Shopping Trends In America
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-11-21/shopping-trends-america
The holiday season is a critical time for most U.S. retailers. Merchants rack up at least a fifth of their annual sales in the last two months of the year, and sales in stores and on-line are expected to grow this year. The day after Thanksgiving - Black Friday - has long launched a three-day shopping frenzy across the nation. Now, a growing number of retailers are opening their doors a day earlier - on Thanksgiving Day. That has sparked a backlash – including protests from some of the employees who will be working behind cash registers on the holiday. Guest host Susan Page and her guests discuss holiday shopping in America.
Guests
Danielle Douglas
financial reporter for The Washington Post.
Kathy Grannis
spokesperson for the National Retail Federation.
Rich Harwood
president of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation.
Comments
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Big Box stores had driven small retailers out of business. Internet sales has breathed life into the small independent retailer. I buy more off of these folks that the Big Box stores anymore. Online sellers sell what I want. I resent the politics of the Big Box stores. I`m not going to create profit to a Big Box store,who uses that profit against the people of the United States. I shop at places where 'Made in the U.S.A.' in not the enemy.
Stores are open the crazy hours on Black Friday (now Thursday) only because they're successful! If the public stayed away, no money would be made, the stores would stop, and the whole problem would be solved!
Unfortunately, with today's attitude of "I'll get mine" so-called family values go out the window, so it's profitable for the stores to separate their employees from family holidays to make a buck. The American public is too selfish to care.
I can still remember the day that I decided I would reject the "Black Friday" madness. This was in the mid '80s. I was stuck in traffic jams for hours, and then packed stores, for hours!
I then decided "never again". Now, I give gifts of gift cards, unless I know of some item that someone would like. Occasionally I might shop online. On "Black Friday", I stay home
I can remember back in the 50s and 60s when Christmas shopping was a lot more relaxed. And people still understood what Christmas was actually about.
What we have now is a big materialistic binge. This is the hallmark of a nation which says it is "Christian"????? We definitely need to re-think what "Christian" means.
Electronics have become an addiction. Retailers are then like drug dealers.
I'm sure heroin and crystal meth are available during Thanksgiving Dinner too. The l'il hoppers who go in to work for shabby wages on a holiday are hurting everyone who works. Thanks living wage advocates who devote holiday time to protest vampire stores.
I have given up Holidays entirely. I give assistance every day of the year, so I sit and read on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I deserve it. When you are on the ground you see how bad our quality of life in the USA has become and how empty the material rewards can be. How can any intelligent person celebrate?
I can sympathize with the Walmart workers. I had a six-month stint with them at one time. I came away with mixed feelings. The knowledge that you are under near-constant surveillance is unsettling. The constant threat of "coaching" really wears on you. The practice of hiring employees part-time and then working them full-time is outrageous. It's fine if you want full-time hours, but Walmart shouldn't be so obviously dishonest about what you are really getting. Don't get me wrong; it's a great place for those of masochistic tendencies.
PS: I'm not one of them.
Black Friday is some kind of weird herd mentality shopping rampage, retailers know this and set prices accordingly. Probably better to do your shopping for things the receivers of these gifts probably don't want a few days before Xmas. Gift certificates for after Xmas shopping make a lot more sense, not much fun opening envelopes though.
The economics of prosperity are economics of proximity...
This is an essential concept in economics... Goods must be produced locally for local consumption... Small locally owned retail (or any business enterprise really) contributes more to the local economy than large corporate owned franchises or retail outlets...
The quality of life goes out the window when anonymous giant corporations take over everything.
The debate between "standard of living" and "quality of life" is an old one... "Standard of living" = how much stuff can you have? "Quality of life" = how much do you enjoy your life?
Ferdnam wrote: "You are quoting one of my favorite economists (together with Keynes). Incidentally, as an aside, there is no contradiction in this appreciation... In any case, there is one essential caveat in your quote: "whenever it's possible."
I will take Milton at his own words, no "caveat". This ain't the living Constitution garbage. He made it clear by my reading of the entire quote, to take it when you can get it no matter what. "whenever it's possible" By big government standards, there always exists a desperate need for more funds. Milton I am certain would not appreciate your interpretation.
Milton Friedman
I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes.
If we really want to make a statement about our dissatisfaction with these trends then stop shopping on these days. This is a demand driven industry and maybe we shoudl get back to the real meaning of Christmas and that is not about fighting crowds at a mall.
Who wants to spend all day cooking and serving a meal, then going shopping? Let the cook take a break. Besides, do you really want to shop when you're all sleepy from a big meal or a little tipsy from one too many glasses of Uncle Dave's red wine?
When I worked for an appliance and furniture retailer, our Thanksgiving weekend hours were: Fri. 4:30 am-10pm, Sat. 7:30 am-10pm and Sun. 8:30am-8pm
There was NO choice, NO overtime (we worked commission, so they got around it) and if you didn't work it you were fired. The retailers do not care about their employees, they only care about profit. The stores opening on Thursday are not giving their employees a choice - they are likely threatening to fire them if they don't.
I'm not planning to shop on Thanksgiving or any other holiday. In fact, I don't shop on Sundays unless I'm totally out of food. And, I wouldn't shop at Walmart, destroyer of small towns, par excellence, on a bet!
Before you buy something, pick it up & check where it's made. If it is made in China, put it back half the time. Shop locally when you can. Make gifts!
Please support those employees of big box stores who don't feel they can protest the hours that their multi-millionaire bosses give them. (The employees might not be so desperate for the overtime they get from giving up their holidays if they were paid a living wage...)
I disagree with the guest (Kathy?) who implies that we must resign ourselves to this trend. People have power to withhold their dollars from companies. We need a new narrative. Our communities - parents especially - need to take responsibility for setting the tone for what we value. Things vs People/Connection - Author of You'll Thank Me Later: A guide to raising grateful children (& why that matters)
I just want to respond to the guest who said that retail workers want to work the extra hours on Thanksgiving and the following Friday because they like it or want the extra money (and she mentioned time-and-a-half). This is not necessarily true. Many retail employees will not get time-and-a-half. There is no legal obligation to pay extra for work on a holiday or a regularly scheduled day off or for night work or long hours. Retail employees paid by commission generally have no right to time-and-a-half at all, even if they work beyond 40 hours in a week (which is the only legal requirement to pay hourly workers a higher hourly wage). At least some stores in our area require the employees to work Thanksgiving AND the following day. My family has to adjust our Thanksgiving holiday because a family member is required to work from Thursday evening until Friday evening (a 21.5 hour shift), plus long hours Saturday and Sunday. We're not complaining because he is a retail sales professional and knows that this is what the work is like, but the Thursday opening and all-night work (for a retail store that normally closes each night) seem quite excessive to me.
Regarding the comments about Saturday small business local shopping, I have a local observation. In Raleigh, our large Christmas parade is traditionally held the Saturday before Thanksgiving, to put people in a holiday spirit, probably to stimulate sales. It's been sponsored by the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce for decades, but this year, I noticed it was sponsored by Shop Local Raleigh.
I am a bit claustrophobic and have always avoided Black Friday shopping. We use mostly on line shopping for the immediate family. Our extended family has agreed to only exchange handmade gifts or to regift items we don't use. The fun is trying not to regift back to the original giver. It has made the holidays much less stressful and allows us to focus our energy and money in better ways. I have run across a number of similarly minded groups on Facebook.
i will spend my day driving to PA, Picking my daughters and niece at airport and heading to my sisters where we will hug and prepare the feat for 20 relatives. My brother in law has spent the day making a big table for all of us. Dinner will start at 2 and we will get up from the table around 10 or 11 p. How can you give this up for a 100 TV
Around the holidays I never cease to be amazed at the hypocrisy of it all. So many Americans wave the "family values" flag along with their Patriotic Pride and irrational defense of Christmas. Yet, they seem to be okay when employees are basically told to go jump in the lake if their "family values" conflict with the bottom line...$$$
Retailers are NOT responding to "customer need" -- they are driving it! This is shameful madness. Thanksgiving is the one sacred holiday left to America. Almost every category of employees get the whole day off, except for the retail grunts who are forced to give up their holiday to serve the paranoid greed of employers. Stop this insanity! I detest "black Friday" and refuse to spend one dime to support it. This year ALL my holiday spending will be at small, local retailers and as gifts in support of victims of Hurricane Sandy.
One of the comments on the program really resonated for me as the core issue--the most troubling aspect of our nation now including Thanksgiving Day in our frenzy to shop. The real heartbreak is not so much what we're focusing on (though this is, in itself, sad) but what we are giving up. We are giving up focus on our families, focus on reflective time, focus on tradition and focus on bonding with friends. In place of these lost American attributes, we are instead turning to greed, avarice, commercialism and blindly rude mass marauding. Very discouraging.
This might not be the time, but I have had to deal with holidays advertising and music for most of my life. I do not celebrate these and I find myself having to avoid stores for almost two months even when I need to buy every day items. This sounds like we are headed to longer periods which impinge on those who do not celebrate these holidays. I am in my sixties and my kids have experienced the same anxieties. Not everyone is Chrisitian.
I work in a service industry that requires our store and service to be open 365 days a year. It wasn't a surprise when I had to work on Christmas eve so the people that also have to work holiday jobs shouldn't be surprised either. However everyone that has to work holidays should be compensated accordingly.
Cashiers are one of the lowest paying and thankless jobs in this country. They have to spend hours and hours on the job to scrape by and now we are taking away one of the most important holidays of the year? I doubt the average cashier can afford to stand up to a manager and say they'll be with their family that day. Meanwhile more affluent classes won't even think twice.
We need a 2 week season, not just ONE Thanksgiving DAY!! Make the season surround the one traditional Thanksgiving Day. One caller said we should be mindfully grateful all year -- well, of course! But humans need more limited seasons to celebrate mindfully -- for example, we have the Christmas SEASON in which xmas type activities take place throughout the whole month of December.
For one thing -- That way they could have more pre-xmas sales other than one Black Friday
I would remind Ms Grannis that we are a nation of citizens not passive consumers of goods and services. I will NOT be putting money into the pockets of the avaricious CEOs and owners of Walmart or any other big box store who is so hungry for profit that they won't allow their underpaid employees a day off if they want it. I stand with the employees who will go out on strike. And except for this show which at least mentions these issues, NPR has compromised its integrity by promoting Walmart and shopping all week with no coverage of the strike of employee grievances.
I am a Black Friday shopper who is saddened by the decision to open on Thanksgiving Day. We move at such a pace that spending a whole day with the family is a rarity. One day families will barely know each other and sadly, this is why.
"partisan politics wrote:
I will take Milton at his own words, no "caveat". ... "
Perhaps but "whenever it's possible" are his own words.
"By big government standards, there always exists a desperate need for more funds."
I would definitely agree with that and there must be budgetary discipline. In the US, it appears that both major parties have none.
"Milton I am certain would not appreciate your interpretation." Actually, he would. He was a very pragmatic fellow.
"Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. ...If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up."
I agree with that...
"The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes."
The problem is that you forget one singularly important problem which is that of the " service of the debt."
Before we can figure out how to reduce the fiscal charge on each taxpayer, we need to figure out how we will pay what we have already gotten on credit...
We need to reduce the debt. Everyone was screaming for military intervention all over the world. And we did not pay for that... We won't be able to pay for that by resorting to a "magical mystery tour."
Romney's solution was smoke and mirrors...
I grew up in retail through my parent's family shoe store in SC. My mom & dad worked 6 days a week and even had emergency phone calls from our small town customers on Sunday's...when the big box stores started competing, my father refused to add additional hours to the store's already long schedule. To do so, he said, would only gain us "kishke gelt" - a perfect Yiddish term for money earned at the expense of your guts. Do we really gain that much in savings from Turkey Thursday and Black Friday specials?!?!
"won't allow their underpaid employees a day off if they want it"
They allow all the days off they want, QUIT.
Another look at shopping malls:
"Mall-aise"
http://www.efn.org/~hkrieger/mallaise.htm