According to TechCrunch, retail spending is up over last year.
Thanksgiving brought record online retail sales for the holiday, with spending up 39.3 percent over Thanksgiving 2010. And today, IBM Coremetrics data shows a 24.3 percent growth in online sales on Black Friday compared to the same period last year.
Yeah. I don’t think so and here is why.
1. Unemployment has been steady at around 9%. That means that every week 9% more Americans are out of jobs. The numbers aren’t getting any better.
2. Food versus Retail purchases. I’m pretty sure that the massively unemployed are concentrating on buying food rather than anything else. Keeping their homes, cars, and the electricity on are going to win out over the black friday shopping craze.
3. Common sense. Common sense should tell you that retail sales HAVE to be down. Stores are going out of business at a record pace. Companies that are still keeping their heads above water are not hiring.
All the signs and environmental conditions point to a retail sales season that might make it out of the red and into the purple but certainly not the black.
