Black Friday looks like a rain out.

[The-Shoveler]

Not going out for our annual over-consumption binge if it is raining. Oh well there is always cyber Monday.

[spdrun]

Car sales fell the most since 2008 — sounds like Father Krampus and The Grinch are coming for this holiday season…

[barnaby33]

It might be me, but the Piggington crowd doesn’t really seem the Black Friday type. I mean other than the new FLU. He might be joining Brian for an extravaganza!
Josh

[outtamojo]

The Piggington crowd knows how to find better deals throughout the year than what black Friday brings.

[Coronita]

Black Friday doesnt mean much anymore because most brick and mortar retailers already started their deals right after Halloween. If you notice most retailers already had all their Christmas holiday sales and items out since November too. Most online deals will start on cyber-Monday. Once upon a time you could buy all your Christmas ornaments and lights the week after Christmas because of all the excess oversupply of inventory at 10-25% original cost. But retailers have gotten smarter and started their discounting mid November and do about 50%-60% off the week of christmas so by the time after Christmas comes around, most of the good inventory is already gone and does not need to be further discounted. And really oversupplied crap ends up at places like Marshals or TjMax or those dollar stores. They got this from Costco which starts their Xmas holiday sales in October. I have a friend that buys excess inventory and returns from retailers and eBay’s the items at a steep discount. he makes a fortune, and he’s also noticed the discounting has started a lot earlier and what’s left isn’t as great as it use to be

[barnaby33]

That’s a really good set of data points. As consumers we are always fighting the last war. Retailers are always planning for the next, those that survive anyway.

Happy t-day all.
Josh

[Coronita]

Gonna go see Ford versus Ferarri now with people with some discounted passes. Theater probably empty, lol

Love that car.

[The-Shoveler]

Have fun at the movie flu, I don’t think there will be a big crowd with this weather.

If the rain lets up some by tomorrow morning we may still get out to the mall and pick up a few things, maybe hit fry’s, best-buy and the Carlsbad outlets.

I think CVS has a sale on beer.

It’s just something we do every year.

[Coronita]

What rain out? I think retail will probably be ok… 3pm Escondido mall. Lots of young shoppers waiting in line. (my usual mall walk with retail biz)

[barnaby33]

You live in the classy part of town, but you shop in Escondido. Something ain’t right about that.
Josh

[Coronita]

[quote=barnaby33]You live in the classy part of town, but you shop in Escondido. Something ain’t right about that.
Josh[/quote]

I am an equal opportunity shopper. You can find me at Walmart, Costco, harbor freight. Got myself a nice 29piece drill bit for $10 . Yeah they’ll break, so did my more expensive ones.

Relatives are retail researchers. They mall hop day after.

[The-Shoveler]

[quote=flu]What rain out? I think retail will probably be ok… 3pm Escondido mall. Lots of young shoppers waiting in line. (my usual mall walk with retail biz)[/quote]

Yea made it out, seemed a mixed bag, Lots of retailers really had no back-Friday sale that had always had BF deals in the past, Ralph’s had a good sale on beer.

The outlet shops in Carlsbad were completely swamped, long lines and crowds everywhere.

[Coronita]

What I like about the Escondido mall is that unlike many other malls, they didn’t go upscale.

UTC, One Paseo, etc all filled their malls up with these high end stores that might be interesting to window shop but rarely buy. Maybe that’s why Tiffany’s is looking for a buyer. I think about 1/2 of the stores in the UTC mall will end up closing by next year.

Meanwhile, stores like Hot Topic , Game Stop had pretty decent lines wrapped outside the store in the Escondido mall. I don’t understand how really young people have the money to be carrying around $1200 iPhone 11s, and spending spending spending, but hey that’s not my problem. I am just observing.

Dollar stores make a shitload of money. Boutique stores you find in One Paseo, Highland Village in Carmel Valley go under all the time. And yet you won’t ever find a dollar store in Carmel Valley. So there you go.

Game Stop closed in Carmel Valley but looks to be kicking in Escondido, and the reason is pretty clear. Carmel Valley retail rent is ridiculously expensive and is filled with rich spoiled brats, and so they always have/want the latest and greatest games, consoles,etc. So kids in Carmel Valley probably don’t buy second hand games, gaming consoles , etc, because they are spoiled brats… kids in Escondido have no problem buying games second hand in Escondido and if Game Stop can sell a 2017 game at $9.99 buy one get one free, you’ll have a long line….

[img_assist|nid=26909|title=gamestopescondido|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]

I bought Just Dance 2018 and 2017 for $9.99 buy one get one free for my Wii, lol. Great entertainment when your friends are buzzed.

Another store that seems to be doing well… Miniso. For those that don’t know, it’s basically an asian dollar store chain. The name sounds Japanese and they sell a lot of cutsie Japanese looking items like plushies and household items really cheap…But there’s nothing japanese about this store… The chinese have figured out if you brand a store to make it look japanese, and sell things cheap, american consumers will spend a shitload of money, more so than if you tried to create a store with a clearly chinese name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniso

[img_assist|nid=26910|title=miniso1|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=1000]

[img_assist|nid=26912|title=miniso3|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=1000]

[img_assist|nid=26911|title=miniso2|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=1000]

It’s a straight up playbook taken from why many chinese people rather open a sushi restaurant these days than a chinese food restaurant. Americans expect chinese food to be cheap, but pay an arm and a leg for sushi. Even if the sushi is really made by the same chinese chefs that would have made the cheap chinese food. Most sushi places in San Diego are either Chinese or Korean owned, so there you go. And it’s funny that some Japanese retailers are ripping at Miniso because they are “copying Japanese”. Well shit, when the japanese started out, they were copying and ripping off of American companies. Karma’s certainly a bitch.

That’s where Huawei failed. They should have entered the US market under a japanese sounding brand name.

Retailers like Macy’s are fvcked. Because they haven’t figured out how to sell to this new younger buyer group. Have you stepped inside a Macy’s lately? Merchandise just looks like crap, imho.

[The-Shoveler]

Fry’s in San-Marcos looked really sad had not been there in a while, looked like it is going out of biz.

The Best-Buy just up the road however was doing a brisk biz. The door-buster deal on the HP-LapTop was still available at around 9:am so I picked one up got a printer as well.

Macy’s and JP pennies at the mall seemed slow, but a lot of their door busters deals were already gone so maybe it was busier earlier.
The parking lot at the Temecula mall looked empty but we were in at 6:00 AM and out by 7:00 AM so maybe it got busier as it cleared up later in the day also the sale started Thursday so it is hard to tell how busy it was.

[spdrun]

Here’s the problem … my last laptop purchase was under $200, and it’s a better computer than anything you can buy new for under $750, even on Black Friday. Thinkpad T430, so nipple mouse, removable battery, upgradeable RAM, room for up to three SSDs. There was nothing that I really wanted to buy on Black Friday, computer-wise, since there’s so much good hardware on the used market.

As far as printers, someone gave me an older Canon Laser combo device a few years ago, along with five or so toner cartridges … I probably won’t have to buy ink for a few decades at the rate I’m using it.

There’s very little that I need or want tech-wise from Black Friday…

[Author]

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