We purposely never participated in those deals and stayed out of the stores as a silent protest to how workers were treated.
I started my career in a vitamin store helping customers, stocking shelves, and cleaning toilets so I have a special understanding how much it sucks and how much more it sucks on a holiday.
Heyā¦I had to work Thanksgiving.
At Blockbuster Video.
So yeah. Iām a survivor.
Many of the large craft fairs are held on holidays, so my association with those holidays is which show I was selling at.
Re Black Friday retail store sales: thereās nothing in the world I want badly enough to brave the crowds. Also, Iād spend more money on gas circling to find a parking space, than Iād save on purchases.
Online sales for me that weekend have never been much. I donāt offer gigundo sales, so my products pretty much get lost in the feeding frenzy.
Omgā¦memoriesā¦those were the days 
Good riddance. I mean folk who still need deals can get 'em conveniently online - Iām guessing by now, there is probably just a minority who canāt avail deliveries. But then thereās amazon pick up locations too - dunno how it works for TVās and things.
It completely makes sense to have black friday deals start earlier in the week for ecommerce, as marketing for ecommerce is just different than B&M. Also another big difference is unlike a retail store, where most of the work is done in stocking it in advance, if you get all the online orders in 1 day youāll be backed up for a week fulfilling the orders which = annoyed customers. Itās just better to have the orders spread out so theyāre all shipped in a timely fashion from when they were received.
Part of having a sales event is to promote your store/brand(s), and while you might not get many cancellations/returns for late shipments, it will certainly make people view your company poorly.
Amazon sort of surprised the public this year with the extension.
Now, everyone will know itās coming next year which means sales will suck the 2 weeks before, with a net-zero increase for a lot of sellers. Wait for the deals we know are coming.
Just my 2 Cents
Well, normally black friday week will suck since everyone is waiting for friday, now the week before will suck because people will wait for the next week, but people wonāt all rush to buy everything on Monday since the deals go on all week. Overall itās zero sum but it makes the fulfillment process go smoother which is a win for Amazon. (and consumers)
Nailed it there. Spreading it out does make it much easier for Amazon.
Now if Amazon could just figure out how to smooth out FBA shipments / transfers without telling everybody a month prior to get all of their Q4 inventory into FBA by X-date in Oct, things would be even better.
Note to self - Get everything ready in August and ship everything in early Sept next year.
Had Amazon just not said anything, and let people with brains figure it out, things would be much better right now for sellers and Amazon.
I guess they could limit the number of inbound shipments allowed and make people bid on slots for the privilege of sending inventory to FBA.
Nope. Just let natural selection do itās thing.
So news.
Friend has a storefront in a local (simon owned) mall. He is a VR/Game place, asked him if they were going to make him open stupid hours.
Apparently COMPLETELY CLOSED Thursday! This is news as they used to open up at midnight and the line onto the local highway started at 8pm.
Not opening till 6am on Friday, and even then they are not forcing anyone to be open. This is a MAJOR change in how malls handle this week from years past. Opening used to be mandatory
This has more to do with basically all malls having vacancies now. In the past it used to be tough to get a lease at a mall, and they had strict rules to go along with it. Canāt afford to piss off tenants when B&M stores are closing left and right.
Dude I remember those days. Leases were an x multiple during holiday seasons. Like serious grape.
Fuq malls (especially for those of us whoāve seen the other side)
But there is a nostaglic element to all of this which I admit I will miss
Selling in a mall is basically like selling on a marketplace. The mall/marketplace is responsible for bringing the foot traffic, and you pay for that in the form of a referral fee. Almost all mall leases have the equivalent of amazonās referral fee built into them.
yah but the geolimits suck major balls
This one happens to have decent occupancy, but I agree the mall owner is no longer king, and they are just now coming to terms with that.
Plus 5% of the register, Plus common area fees, Plus Advertising.
The new thing is mall owned internet service. $200/mo for 1 meg, and itās down 3 days out of the month. Laughed when I saw the equipment, 10 year old Cisco 10/100 network switch connected to a fiber drop and a $75 Office Depot Router
Quite honestly the biggest benefit to having a retail store is thereās a lot of brands that will only let you sell online (and some that allow you to sell on Amazon) if you also have a retail store to stock their product in.
If you have a nice location in a mall itās easier to get brands to take you seriously as well.
I donāt venture into that realm of ws which I find utterly useless and have voiced my opinion about it on the OSFE many a time.
