Black Friday

Well every Friday after Thanksgiving is known as black Friday. Shoppers go out crazy searching for the hottest items and trying to pick up their holiday gifts for their friends and families. Everything goes on sale and the eyes of the shoppers get huge. They look for the greatest bargains and shop away! CNN has an article about this day i would like to share:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Worried retailers and mall operators breathed a big
sigh of relief after Black Friday 2007 kicked off to a robust start.
However, industry analysts caution that the early buying frenzy could soon
peter out - and endanger crucial weekend sales - as millions of pre-dawn
shoppers succumb to shopping fatigue.
"The early bird shoppers are definitely
out there. But will it last through the day?" said Marshal Cohen, chief industry
analyst with market research firm NPD Group.
Already, Cohen estimates that
mall traffic in the early hours appeared to be down slightly compared last
year.
"I'm basing this on mall parking lot capacity and the actual lines in
front of stores before they opened today," Cohen said. "Last year there were
200-300 people waiting for stores to open on Black Friday. This year, it's maybe
100. And when these 100 people get in, that's it. I'm not seeing a second big
rush into the store."
Retail
hordes go loony over Zune
To his point, a Wal-Mart
(Charts, Fortune
500) store in Union, N.J., seemed to attract a smaller crowd than last year
for its 5 a.m. opening. The shoppers who were there rushed to grab toys such as
the Bratz fashion dolls and Dora products and electronics like the Polaroid
42-inch LCD TV set for $798 and a Magnavox DVD/VHS player for $69.
"[Today]
will be an OK sales day, but the big issue is whether or not we'll get a
slowdown midday," said Cohen. "I'm waiting to see how sales do today and the
weekend. All three days are important, although I think Sunday will be much
quieter than last year."
The day after Thanksgiving is dubbed "Black Friday"
because it traditionally marks the day when retailers finally move out of the
red, indicating losses, and into the black, representing profit.
It also sets
the tone to the four weeks of gift-buying leading up to Christmas. Moreover,
November and December, together, can account for as much as 50 percent of
merchants' annual profits and sales.
Gallery:
Black Friday madness
This year's Black Friday rush is even more critical
for retailers, who are facing a tepid sales forecast for holiday 2007. The
National Retail Federation expects total holiday sales to grow 4 percent to $475
billion, its slowest growth in five years as millions of American households
curtail their spending habits amid a housing downturn and other economic
pressures.
If holiday sales come in below 4 percent, experts fear it could
result in a retail industry shakeout resulting marked by store closings in 2008.
"Retailers still haven't felt the full impact of the housing slump,
sub-prime [mortgage] collapse, credit card problems and fuel prices on American
households and their ability to spend," said Tim Finley, former CEO of men's
specialty chain Jos. A Bank who is now managing director with turnaround
consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal.
Retail analyst Britt Beemer said he,
too, expects the shopping momentum to wane by mid-afternoon and in the coming
weeks.
Special Report:
Holiday Money 2007
"Stores have opened much earlier this year and this
will have a negative impact on sales," Beemer said. "If you are up at 4 a.m. to
go to J.C. Penney or Kohl's, chances are when you're done, there's no more
shopping left for you in the day."
Overall, Beemer expects holiday sales to
grow a diappointing 2 percent. "I'm sticking to that forecast unless I see
something improve dramatically over the next two weeks."
Specifically for
Black Friday, Beemer said retailers did the right thing by using deep discounts
to attract the early crowds but he's concerned that merchants may have killed
the Friday after-work shopping rush in the process.
Some mall operators,
however, took a different view.
Wally Brewster, spokesman for General Growth
Properties, which operates more than 200 malls nationwide, said the company had
similar concerns to Beemer's when some of its malls held midnight openings last
year for Black Friday.
"But when we looked at the combined sales for Friday
and the weekend, total sales at malls that opened at midnight showed a higher
increase compared to our malls that didn't," Brewster said. "We'll see if that
happens again this year."

Every year the shopping just continues to grow. The rush runs in and the stores empty out. We all have to stop and think, is it really worth the rush though. I love the holidays dont get me wrong, but i think people take it way too far with the shopping and just need to relax a bit!