Whocouldaknodit?

To follow up on the previous entry: Why would any store be inclined to report worse results than they have to?

I think this will be the season of WHOCOULDAKNODIT?

I can think of a couple of reasons.

1.) To own up to weakness.

Let's just say I'm a corporate entity, and I stocked heavily on a product that didn't sell very well. I could mark it down, and take a loss, or I could pretend that it's still viable product and therefore keep it in the profit side of the ledger.

This is your chance to dump it.

I suspect that even relatively good branch managers hide some weaknesses here and there, or they wouldn't survive the corporate cutthroat. Now they can lump the weakness along with the other crap.

You may have weak systems or employees or fixtures....here's your chance to admit it.

After all, Whocouldaknodit?

It's not our fault a huge recession hit and there were terrible blizzards.

2.) Get rid of the marginal.

There are probably a lot of stuff in every business that is neither good or bad but just kind of neutral. As long as things are going well, you keep them on the books, but nows the time to clear them.

In other words, this will be the season to dump absolutely everything you can. Dig out all the crap, the weak, the inefficient and blame the economy.

Hell, the stock price is going to go through the floor anyway. And everyone else is in the same camp, might was well take your lumps.

Which ironically, might make the season look even worse than it is!