Stock Market Watch

Black Friday Sales Up Over 7%

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Wal-Mart StoresThis year’s black Friday sakes increased by about 7 percent compared to last year, giving the shopping season a really strong start.

The holiday shopping season seems to have a great kick off after the retail chains experienced a strong start during this Black Friday as compared to that of the previous year. This year’s Black Friday retail sales were up by 7 percent as compared to 2010’s and with the first hurdle out of the way, the stores just have to make sure the customers coming back without promise of super savings.

The Black Friday retail sales in the previous year amounted to about $1 billion less than that of the current year’s figure of $11.4 billion spent on shopping by customers across the United States making it the largest amount spent on a single Black Friday which marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season. The customer spending on the Black Friday day has been increasing every year since the past few years according to the data collected from various shopping centers and individual stores.


The customer spending on online shopping had increased by about 25 percent on Black Friday this year. The increasing in spending comes as great news for the retailers especially at the time of economic slowdown. Various promotions and 60 percent discounts on electronics and other goods garnered great response from the consumers and this shopping season seems to turn out great as the Black Friday sales have shown some great response. There are possibilities of the buying frenzy to subside after the weekend as few promotions will come to an end. The holiday sales are expected to be up by about 3.3 percent through Christmas this year.

In some cases the Black Friday shoppers turned on violent and had to be subdued by the police. One woman shopper at Los Angeles area Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT) could possibly face battery charges after she allegedly pepper sprayed 20 shoppers on Friday night to get an advantage and buy the discounted Xbox consoles which were being unwrapped for sale. She surrendered to the authorities afterwards. In other cases, a grandfather in his late 50s was allegedly manhandled by the police for suspected shoplifting in suburban Phoenix.

There were few shoppers who decided to take the Black Friday sales easy and enjoy the holiday while staying out of the way of enthusiastic shoppers crowding the shopping centers and retail outlets across the country. In some of the big box stores, the heavily discounted electronic specials were in healthy supply even after the early rush was over unlike the other times.

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edliston
Post Written By: Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.


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Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing.

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