Nov 17, 2010

Getting ready for ‘Black Friday’By MinutemanNewsCenter.com

The holiday shopping season begins in earnest on the day after Thanksgiving (aka “Black Friday”), and everyone is hoping that the season is a good one, particularly for local retail stores and shopping centers.

People are naturally worried about the economy, and although they’ll end up buying Christmas presents for their families and friends, they’re definitely being a lot more careful with their money.

“Black Friday” got its name from the observation that a lot of retailers become profitable as a result of after-Thanksgiving sales. That’s the theory, anyway. And “Cyber-Monday” is supposed to be the big day to do a lot of shopping on the Internet.

These days, lots of people are into Internet shopping, visiting the web sites of regional or national companies to make their selections from a seemingly endless variety of choices.

That’s a trend that will continue. But there’s also a lot to be said for doing one’s holiday shopping the “old-fashioned” way — visiting local stores and trying on clothing items, testing that fancy new electronics gizmo, and talking to a knowledgable customer service person about the store’s selections.

There’s also this: once you visit a particular local store a few times, you’re likely to find the personnel beginning to get to know you, and you’ll get even better service (we also find that to be true at local doughnut shops, but that’s another story).

A local store owner told us something recently that gave us pause, and confirmed our view that the current downturn is as much psychological as it is economic.

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