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Deck the malls, cyber and otherwise

It’s hard to calculate the total number of sales rung up on Black Friday as well as Cyber Monday. No matter how you slice the numbers ­ sales solely at major brick-and-mortar retailers, sales at brick-and-mortar stores with an online presence, sales at virtual stores with no mall presence, sales that were initiated online but picked up at a store ­ the bottom line is still the bottom line.

If we are to believe the reports filtering in last week following the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, Black Friday was good with the proviso that the majority of the purchases were of items that had major price cuts. Cyber Monday is as onerous to get a handle on as anything as amorphous and constantly growing as the Internet.

The eBay Inc. companies, including Shopping.com and PayPal, weighed in with optimistic sales numbers. EBay said it was the most visited e-commerce site on Black Friday with 5.4 million unique visitors. PayPal reported a 34 percent increase in total payment volume online over Cyber Monday 2006. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there were more sales, but maybe more people are getting comfortable with online buying. Busy doesn’t mean bigger numbers.

In addition, PayPal also noted in its statement that holiday shopping activity is busiest on the second Monday in December, dubbed Green Monday.

As for Black Friday, numbers show shopping was up, but the prices of items tumbled. One of the problems this season is the lack of a Cabbage Patch doll or a Tickle Me Elmo or any the other toy phenomena that have gripped shoppers in seasons past. Guitar Hero III is a hot item, but is in plentiful supply. So how do retailers entice shoppers to enter their doors? Cut prices.

And to really entice them, open your doors when most drunks are heading home from the bars. Luckily, we didn’t hear any reports of early morning crashes involving inebriated drivers and early-bird bargain hunters.

Did the 4 a.m. openings really increase sales? Are the people crunching the numbers on the retail sales taking into consideration the disparity of store hours? How do you reconcile the sales rung up on the longer day to last year’s shorter store hours?

The National Retail Federation wrote in its press release:

“If there were any doubts that consumers would be shopping in full force over Black Friday, they have finally been put to rest. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2007 Black Friday Weekend Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, more than 147 million shoppers hit the stores on Black Friday weekend, up a solid 4.8 percent from last year.”

OK, up 4.8 percent, but the ever-dreaded asterisk should be affixed. Does the increase account for the store-hours disparity?

“Black Friday was marked with retailers opening their doors earlier than ever, with some choosing to start their sales as early as midnight. This strategy appeared to pay off as 14.3 percent of consumers were out shopping before 4 a.m., compared to 12.4 percent last year,” the Retail Federation wrote.

We’re not exactly sure what to make of this. Either Americans are easily swayed by discounts or a sale is a sale, hour of day be damned.

Do the early-morning starts really entice shoppers or are they insulting, as in, “We value you as a customer and we’ll offer you these great prices, but you better get in here bright and early.”

Maybe the major retailers are onto something. Rather than just offer competitive prices all day long, slash ‘em in the off hours, when most people are sleeping.

Perhaps other businesses should follow suit.

Gas stations could do the same ­ offer cheaper price per gallon in the middle of the night rather than in the middle of the day.

Banks could offer better mortgage rates between 1 and 4 a.m.

Realtors could cut their commissions for any overnight sales. (Heck, anyone who looks at a house in the middle of the night is not apt to notice that crack in the foundation.)

Hospitals could offer discounted medical care to babies born between midnight and 3 a.m.

Auto dealers, movie theaters, fast-food restaurants, hair salons, bridal shops … get on the middle-of-the-night, cut-rate bandwagon. If it works for the big boys, it could work for you.

The only thing you’ve got to lose is some sleep. And the current woes in the housing market and whispers of the “R” word have many of us tossing and turning already. So maybe our nights could be better spent, well, spending money.

 

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