Black Friday Shopping
Bridget Riegert
The Thursday night after Thanksgiving is one of the most popular nights of the year. Millions of people get some rest before waking up at midnight to go shopping all night. It is the time of the year where every business has the best deals and the greatest sales on their racks and on their shelves. Over the years as shopping becomes an annual tradition for many families and friends, many are wondering how all this spending and buying is affecting our economy as a whole? Surely selling products for so cheap will hurt our economy more than help it? After much research, it has been determined that there are overall black friday shopping has a positive effect on the economy.
According to useconomy.about.com this year a record of 92 million shoppers shopped on Black Friday. Every year the number has increased by around 4 million people. This means that more products are bought by consumers and more money is circulated through the economy. More sales taxes are paid, more items are sold, and more people can be employed. The website also states, “On average, each shopper burned through $407.23, down from last year's record $423, but more than the $398 in 2011”. Statistics also show that retail stores make around 40% of their annual revenue. This helps the economy substantially.
The graph above shows how much money holiday sales make and how much is made during black friday shopping. In 2012 around $589 billion dollars was made during the holiday season. However $60 billion was made just during the black friday shopping. You can see that the trend through time has always changed. Back in 2006 money was spent more during the holidays then on black friday. Around 2008-2009 black friday was making about $20 billion more than regular holiday shopping. Now in 2012, the holiday sales and thanksgiving weekend is almost equal. 2012 was also the year that America as a whole spent the most money.
Since it has been determined that overall black friday shopping has a positive effect on the economy, many Americans question why we haven’t made this tradition happen more often. Many mention that they wouldn’t mind having this shopping deals before New Years Eve, or in June right when schools are getting out. Part of the reason that many businesses will only promote deals this big for one weekend is because they still have products that they want to sell at a decent price for a decent amount of profit. The opportunity cost would be some of the profit that they make since they aren’t selling all the items for the full price they would like to.
Many stores will have package deals and sell Keurig coffee makers with a free Keurig coffee flavors. The businesses are hoping for this weekend that they will still make a marginal benefit with the marginal cost of the free Keurig coffee flavors. This is a marketing strategy that many will use, and still make a decent amount of money which helps the economy. This is how Black Friday shopping helps the economy more than hurts it. So keep up the midnight shopping!
Sources:
"What Is Black Friday?." About.com US Economy. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. <http://useconomy.about.com/od/demand/f/Bl
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