What does the economy mean for holiday-season sales? Well, there's good news, at least for shoppers: Black Friday, the sales extravaganza that traditionally takes place the day after Thanksgiving, is now nearly a month long. Last year Wal-Mart's ridiculously un-secret "Secret Sale," which started three weeks before Black Friday, was a huge success, so other retailers will probably borrow that strategy this year. But then there's the bad news: It's virtually impossible for stores to borrow money in this economy, which means some promised sales might disappear once retailers realize they don't have the wherewithal to offer discounts. Others will just go out of business, period.
But then there's the good news: When stores go out of business, they have awesome liquidation sales. "All the signs point to this holiday season having the best crop of deals that dealnews has reported since the dot-com bubble burst in 2001." But then there's the bad news: Should we really all be shopping when the economy is going down in flames? But then there's the good news: We'll probably all be too deal-giddy to notice.
· A Black Friday like no other [Dealnews]
· "Black Friday" Starting At Halloween This Year [Consumerist]For more stories from Racked, go to racked.com.
