>>>
should our favorite stores get rid of black friday and cybermonday sales altogether? special shopping days traditionally start the holiday shopping season. in the economic climate some are wonder, is it a good idea to designate certain days of the year as the best time to shop? joining us now from washington, d.c., retail reporter for "the
washington post
." why shouldn't we have these highlighted days? it kind of fun, isn't it?
>>
well, it is fun for many people who are waking up at 3:00 in the morning and standing outside in the freezing cold waiting for a flat screen tv, i'm sure. however, what i wrote in a reason piece in our outlook section is that there's just too many days. we not only have black friday, we have cybermonday. we have
small business
saturday. you know we have free shipping day. so many that it's become overwhelming to consumers and i think that, for many people they don't know when they're supposed to shop and they're not sure when the best deals are going to be.
>>
aren't you being a shopping grinch, though, huh? they're fun.
>>
i have covered this more many years now and one thing that has struck me, retailers have gotten creative. walmart tried to extend friday into saturday so there would be one long 48-hour friday to fit all of their amazing deals into it. info merges one year tried to get on the game and said they would start info mania sunday to
shop at home
while digesting your turkey. we've seen retailers getting creative with marketing and what i'm saying that is you should definitely go shopping if you want to buy gifts this
holiday season
but can we snop peace instead of having all of these different days at us.
>>
you have some ideas what the alternatives might be.
>>
right. i think that, you know, consumers are coming out and going shopping no matter what. there was stats you mentioned about shopper track saying despite all of the promotions, black friday sales only increased very marginal .3% and part is because consumers were coming out throughout november, drawn in by other deals and that they were coming throughout the month. so you know i think we don't all need to be corralled into shopping on one day, that the holiday spirit will move us buy gifts when we find it appropriate.
>>
are you going to stand in front of all of those folks every single black friday and cybermonday and try to stop them? what's going to incentivize folks from not doing that, participating in big events?
>>
i think already we're seeing a lot of delusion around those days. for example, amazon started cybermonday today on sunday. mall mart doing cybermonday all week, calling it cyberweek. we're finding people are shopping outside of those days. there's been a lot of delusion. i think people will shop when they feel the need to.
>>
the peak will that will never change, i think,
december 24th
, when everybody's doing last-minute shopping, that's for sure.
>>
you hit the
grocery store
and hit a
gift card
.
>>
get turkey, wrap it up in a paper bag for
“ ”