Black Friday was nothing spectacular. Did better than a normal Friday, but not quite the double normal I was looking for (to make up for the closed Thursday.) In the old days, we'd do triple. The foot traffic really got going after noon, but more 'clans' and lookers than buyers. Pat tells me that Saturday had even more lookers, and even less buyers. Ended up with average sales.

I don't do discount sales. I think that either 1.) all the bargains that mass market are offering are bogus, that are planned from the beginning or 2.) a loss leader that does nothing for the bottom line, designed to create foot traffic. Downtown Bend has the foot traffic, these days. We just need to sell them something.

A 2x increase in sales with no discount is equivalent to a 2.5x increase with 10% off, and I doubt a 10% off sale would have much impact. A 20% off sale would mean I have to sell 5x normal to make the same profit, and I doubt the consumer would be excited by even a 20% off sale.

I'll repeat that, a 20% discount would require a increase in sales of 5x normal to make the same profit I made at 2x normal.

Like I said, I suspect that much of the 'blow-out' material in the chain stores is designed from the moment they are created to create an illusion of savings. Let's see; this big screen T.V. makes an acceptable 20% markup at half price, and we can price SRP at 40% markup, so we'll price it at 15% higher than our real target SRP leading up to Black Friday since no one's buying anyway, then we'll lower our price 50% from that price, and end up at our target price.

Call me cynical. Call the public, Pavlovian puppies.


I have found out that my board games, which I have so assiduously accumulated, have already landed in the mass market, Barnes and Noble and such. That didn't take long. I knew it was coming, but this is quicker than I'd thought. Pat says that one customer left a Settlers of Catan on the counter, cause they could get it 'cheaper'.
So much for that product line.


My own observation about the housing bubble is that we are still in the denial stage. I think there might be a few insider real estaters that are fixing to starting to get ready to begin getting irked. We have a long way to go. My brother in law on Thanksgiving thought I was a fool to think prices were going to drop by this time next year. We have a friendly 20.00 bet. But his attitude is what I run into most. The glass is half full, as far as they're concerned, and we are just being ninnies to think otherwise.