ANTenna Blog -- Business & E-Business

With consumer spending accounting for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy, the results of Black Friday and Cyber Monday matter to all of us, not just retailers. So send your employees shopping.

On Friday, the chaotic scenes that played out at malls across America reached a level of deadly mayhem at a Long Island Wal-Mart -- raising the question of what wouldn't someone do for a 42-inch LCD TV priced at less than $600. The tragedy provided a broader cultural discussion that provided a momentary reprieve from the collective breath holding over retail numbers, but we turn to the numbers nonetheless:

• According to ShopperTrack RCT Corp, Black Friday sales totaled $10.6 billion, a 3% increase from last year when the increase was 8%.
• According to the National Retail Federation, average spending over the Black Friday weekend went up $372.75, a 7.2% bump from 2007. Over the weekend, 172 million shoppers visited stores or Web sites (a 17% increase from last year).
• eBay's PayPal saw a 34% jump in transaction volume and a 26% increase in online payment volume on Black Friday.

Why the relentless focus on retail returns for one weekend -- well just as consumer spending is the engine that drives our economy, this past weekend is the engine that drives retail -- 10% of holiday sales come during this period. And not only is there historic consumer pessimism the calendar is conspiring against retailers with an unusually short shopping season this year.

And today is the last day of the frenzy that will form the narrative of holiday consumer spending -- Cyber Monday. Last year, Cyber Monday sales increased by 21% -- more than a fifth (in other words a positive, encouraging number) -- and by this time tomorrow we'll know the Cyber Monday results for this year. If the Black Friday numbers are any indication, expect an increase, but not a whopper.

So what can you do to keep our economy rolling? Get online and spend? Look the other way while your employees bring your network to a halt in search of the best online deals?

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