How the heck are shopping figures up??

reply to post by godWhisperer


Well, I suppose one thing that helps us out in the UK and Europe is we have greater social safety nets which help out a lot. Even those without jobs at all will be able to spend. I do feel for you guys over there, when things are going great, you lot seem to do very well, but when the SHTF you seem to have a much rougher time of it.

On the plus side, it does make you realise what is really important when things are rough, something many on this side of the pond may not get to experience due to the safety nets, which may end up benefitting you guys more than us as you learnt to "live within your means" and appreciate life, whereas the danger here is the perpetuation of the materialistic side of Christmas.

For balance though, many councils around England have cut funding for Christmas lights etc, due to cuts in central Government funding for local authorities and an order from the to to freeze Council tax (property tax for want of a better description). Most shortfalls in spending have been met by business though as a nicely lit High Street will generate more footfall, increasing trade and we have seen in almost all shopping malls and High Streets and massive increase in footfall since a year ago.

Originally posted by stumason

Originally posted by MastaShake
I know not everyones in my boat, to think that would be foolish. but i DO know that there are alot more people in my situation then previous years. Just walking around my neighborhood is proof enough of that.

It stands to reason that most in your area will be a similiar socio-economic strata, so will likely be experiencing the same problems, to a greater or lesser degree...

It's like being a fish in a pond that is running out of food. You look around you and other fish are also going hungry, you then assume, based on the available evidence, that all fish must be hungry. What you can't see is the pond in the other field, where the fish have plenty to eat. Nor can they see you, works both ways I suppose.

I'm not saying there aren't people struggling (and I wish that everyone wasn't and we were all happy) I am just pointing out that because some are, not everyone is, hence the sales figures.

The thing here is that my "area" consists of about 7 million people. my job consists of driving around and delivering office supplies to businesses pretty much all around queens/bronx/brooklyn and everybody i talk to says the same thing. buisness is down terribly.

reply to post by MastaShake


I;m not trying to pick a fight, just elaborating on the opening thrust of the thread, which is why are sales figures up...

Now, I obviously don't really have a clue of the exact nature of your "neighbourhood", but there could be a variety of factors at play here.. One, the business's you interact with are not selling goods people want or at the right price, or they are reliant on the local populace for business and if there is a significant amount of people with money worries, this would affect the local economy.

That isn't to preclude that elsewhere in the country, business is doing well, however and that there is simply no way you can say that all 7 million people in your area are having trouble. Unless you interact with people from every business sector and every social strata, it is a big generalisation to assume that everyone is having problems. Many might be, but there is obviously a strong enough group of people who aren't to lift those figures up.

You might think they are lying about them, which they could, but this would become apparent when it comes round to results time and the businesses concerned don't make the money expected. It is also in breach of stock exchange rules to release misleading sales or financial figures, which would bite them on the arse should they be lying about it.

All that said, I am not trying to take away from you your thrust that people are finding it difficult, just trying to look at the bigger picture. For example, here in the UK a town like Rochdale has had a woeful year, it's High Street has effectively died and even McDonalds has shut it's restaurant! Compare that to my town of Reading and we're booming.

reply to post by stumason



oh i wasnt trying to say that every one of the 7 million people are having tough times but im just trying to point out that driving around and just seeing the lack of decorations in most places is a good sign of how things are going since ive lived here for 20 years and regardless of how bad things were people always managed to at the very least put lights up.

and i do interact with people from many different businesses since we sell things like receipt papers, printer ink, printer paper and stuff of that nature. a majority of the places i go to are clothing/electronic stores but i do also deliver to bestbuys and targets in the area aswell as stores in many of the malls around here and a majority of them have told me sales are far below expectations. its the same in manhattan but to a lesser degree obviously

hell, last week i went to the toys r us in times square, which is one of the biggest toy stores in the world to get my little brother something and i had to wait in line a full 5 minutes. this wasnt even because there were many people there but because there was only 1 person working the cash register and it got jammed so she had to wait for the manager

Here the stores have been packed. I hated having to go out and get anything because the stores and streets had people all over the place. I would assume that the sales represented are from across the country. I suspect some areas are seeing a lower degree of sales while other parts are seeing huge amounts of sales.

Of course I live in the Midwest; thankfully the Midwest has held pretty well when it comes to jobs and money. Sure things are hard but the cost of living is lower than many areas which helps dramatically. There is also the number of production work that remains simply because of ease of shipment and delivery. Being central to the U.S. and living just off the Mississippi river helps with that. Here we have many ways in which the businesses can transport their products making shipping costs cheaper. Of course we work for lower pay here than the higher cost of living areas but I am willing to sacrifice that for keeping a job that pays a decent wage.

Raist

Christmas eve picking up a last minute item...

All the stores shelves are fully stocked. Very few people shopping.


I talked to a mail room worker and even he said it was like Christmas wasn't even here. No boom in packages.

I think they'll be closing more post offices because of it.

Maybe the figures are correct without telling the whole story. I know this side of the water there were reports in a similar vein, but there was also a reported caveat in that the increase in late business might not make up for the extreme low in business over the year, which is really more important. There is also complications with the seasonal market over here with fairly mild temperatures through October, November and nobody buying winter clothing. That's how M&S got caught out big time. Then there is the daily papers, often with the most ridiculous headlines, (nothing to do with statistics) like our Daily Express that run front page headlines like "housing market prices on the rise again" (they actually ran this twice over a time) when it is patently obvious that is not true, (the Express is a current government supporter BTW) I would suggest digging a bit deeper might hoke out the same kind of story. The long run is still not good.

If the figures stated are for Goods and Services, that may explain the uptick.

A lot of money has passed lately in the Purchases of Politican,s and their morals.

Morals and Souls aren,t cheap, but all have a price.

I work at taco bell. Every year at Christmas time we collect donations for a childrens home in TN. This year donations were about 3/4 what they were last year. I live in a very poor area where most people are on some type of assistance, or on SS, or both. So those who are shopping at all are doing so at the dollar stores. The adopt-a-family program fell way short this year in my area. A whole lot of families didn't get adopted.
If sales are up this year, my guess is that people are spending money they'd normally have donated to charity.
AliWV

reply to post by MastaShake


Because they jack up the prices when they know people need to do last minute shopping. The fact there will be sales tomorrow tells me that they have already planned on sucking the money out of everyone!

There are two things that I think are causing the disconnect between reported sales and eyewitness reports. First, as someone pointed out, we're being lied to. Just like with unemployment figures, I'm sure the sales numbers are massaged.

Number two, all of the sales reports I've seen so far have been in dollars, not units. Since prices are going up (no matter what the ridiculous CPI says) I'd expect sales to be constant or improved when measured in just dollars, but down in units.

I spent way less this year - one moderate present for each child, some small things they needed & homemade gifts for the relatives. The homemade jam was a hit.

I had to take my son to urgent care Christmas Eve for a severe ear infection. I was very worried about getting there before they closed since I had to drive past a large mall and two large shopping centers to get there. I was sure I'd hit major traffic and delays. NOTHING. No traffic, no lines, no difficulties. Then we found the center had closed early and had to drive another 30 miles to an open clinic.

reply to post by MastaShake


You are correct, everyone is cutting back, but they know how society works and how many people justify their spending through peer pressure. If they keep saying it over and over, people will think it's true and feel like they should be able to spend too, and then blow their last $ on something.

Everything is being orchestrated to try to get the corporations over Christmas, from the bailouts to the agreement in the Eurozone to the tax in the USA. It's all temporary measures to try to convince people to spend everything they have over the holidays and prop up the businesses for just a little bit longer.

We were already in the collapse over a year ago, this is all a stage show to slow it down rather than experience a total collapse that would send shock waves around the world. No government would be able to deal with the fallout of the global collapse, but they can try to deal with a slow decline in living standards across the planet.

A lot of the figures I'm seeing seem to contradict each other. The BBC ask people in the street and maybe two out of three say they've cut back, and then they talk to businesses who say they've seen sales drop by 50%.

One thing that really fascinated me was the report of the sales of "durable goods" being up in the last quarter. I'd love to see the drill-down data for that, because I have a hunch that the kinds of "durable goods" they're talking about will be farming equipment, guns, ammo, solar kits, generators and all the other stuff your average survivalist needs!

here in my neck of the woods the shoppers were not out in force at all.
I work in a small retail store and sales were just awful.
So bad my boss decided to shut it down Feb 1. the store has been there 18 years and for the last several years it's just gotten slower and slower.
I did my little bit of shopping saturday. Definately noticed the shelves were oddly stocked , and the checkout lines were quick and painless. alot of good sale prices on the bright side.
I don't understand where they get their stats from either. I think they are lying to try to fool people into thinking things are on the upswing and its ok to spend money. sad thing is alot of people just don't have money to blow.

reply to post by detachedindividual


yep that sure sounds like durable goods... too bad we cant purchase guns in nyc, id sure like to gift myself an m1911 for when the shtf

Originally posted by godWhisperer
when they say more people are spending money this christmas then i think it's BS disinformation to make us feel compelled to spend money we don't have and put us in debt.

Right on!

That's exactly why they do it. They know most of humanity operates on a hive mentality and if people believe everyone else is spending up, they will feel bad for not doing the same.

The term "keeping up with the Joneses" is actually a very real, mental illness.

For my little family, things were leaner this year. If it wasn't for our Christmas club account, our kids wouldn't have had much of a Christmas at all. We only had a couple of hundred dollars in the account and managed to still provide them with decent gifts. Granted some of those were "need" type gifts. Our kids aren't spoiled by any means. We spent very modestly on other relatives keeping our gifts to about $12/person. We pared down the list of recipients as well.

I've noticed at the convenience store I work for, the customers are using credit cards for gas and other items more often. My guess is that they are attempting to maintain their lifestyles with credit hoping for a better tomorrow to pay it with. It won't work. Been there, tried that. The only solution is belt tightening. There is just too much opportunity for things to get worse either personally or as a whole. I wish I could tell them to be careful and trust me on that. We thought credit would keep us going until things got better, and they got worse. Before long we were in a bigger hole than we started.

Also got to factor in some other things...
Tangible goods vs. virtual (IP) goods.
Internet shopping by those that still have money.

Something like a virtual good as a holiday gift means I could email a friend some coupon code, and then he goes and downloads Angry Birds on his phone. No mail, no trip to the store, no actual shipping, etc. Just a visit to some website and use the credit card.

Internet shopping may account for more of those sales too. If you have enough of an idea about the product you are getting, you might not need to get involved in the rush at some brick n' mortar store. (This is still bad for most brick n' mortar stores, but overall numbers would still show a decent sales tally.)

Outside of that, what you're saying about the lower end of the economy likely still holds true. Not much point in trying to spend money you don't have.

Because, us rich people are just buying more

It makes perfect sense. Wealth is not being lost it is being concentrated. I could not afford to give out one iPad this year. Kim Kardashian could afford to give out 4 times as many as she could last year.

Makes sense to me.

"If we print it, it will become true..." is the motto they think works. From what I've seen though, this report is just not true. My little town grocery store is usually packed elbow to elbow with everyone in town. It starts the week before Christmas and stays packed, right up until 6 pm Christmas Eve (with people still banging on the doors for 30 minutes after). Add in that they put up luminarios every year (paper bags with sand and tea candles for those who don't know) throughout the entire town, so they block traffic in sections all day. It's usually a nightmare! Takes me about 20 minutes to go 3 blocks. Being the ditz I am, of course I forgot something(s) , and was DREADING the thought of having to go to the store. I head out and get to the main highway....nothing....not a car for MILES. Get down to the store, again, NOTHING. There were maybe 10 cars in the parking lot, all but one belonged to employees. I'm telling you there were crickets chirping it was so dead in there. All I can says is our area is feeling the crunch of this 'recession'. Makes me sad, cause these are good people around here. Maybe next year for Christmas I'll ask Santa to transport me to whoever wrote this report's fairy tale land of milk and honey, where this report is true and unicorns fart rainbows. I do understand that some areas really are doing better. For that I'm truly happy that there are still places out there that can afford it, but these guys are still full of it. Give me enough time and the ability to break every law of mathmatics and I can make 5+5 = 127 too