Dealbreaker takes a different spin on Holiday spending

Dealbreaker's Opening Bell

Just in time for Christmas, Dealbreaker's Joe Wiesenthal gets all scroogy:

The more cynical among us might even describe it as Economic
Fallacy Season, as reporters buy hook, line, and sinker the idea that consumer
spending is good for the economy. Never mind the fact that credit card debt only
contributes to our savings problem. Never mind the fact that people don't get as
much utility out of gifts as they get out of products they buy for themselves.
And never mind the fact that the Holiday causes a major disruption to industrial
output. And then there's all of the economic friction associated with temporary
employment, parking, headaches, family fights, stores shutting down, etc. Still,
do your part and help the needy... a needy retailer that is.

Really, how can anyone disagree with that? It's unfortunate that the retail sector (at least, what everybody thinks of as the "retail" sector. Automobile sales get lumped into "retail" but December is traditionally sluggish for car sales) has painted itself into a corner where the Christmas selling season is the make or break quarter for retailers to hit all their metrics.

The following is one of my favorite factoids, and is a great indicator of how critical December is for retailers. At HBC, the rule of thumb for coordinating logistics and payroll to deal with the increasing sales volume was that in the first two weeks of December, a typical HBC store would generate sales equivalent to the entire month of November. In the third week, again sales volume equals the month of November. And what happens in the last three days before Christmas, you ask? That's right, November's volume squeezed into three days. The growth of sales dollars was not quite logarithmic, but it was a valuable tool to use to manage the supply chain and when budgeting wage hours for optimum sales floor coverage (back at a time when HBC was interested in things like maximizing performance).

I have no real point here, I guess. After eleven years of fighting it out in the retail trenches, I just enjoy watching the carnage from a safe distance. Oh, I also enjoy going home at 5pm, Monday to Friday in December.

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