Why Holiday Sales will be down this year

Yes people are hurting financially, yes people have been laid off, yes housing, food and utilities are high.

BUT--- That is not the worst reason I see.

I was at a few stores today and yesterday.
YOU CAN'T have sales if you don't have enough people ringing people up.
I was at a bigger store, there were 2 cashiers.
People just got up and left the line that went all the way to the other side of the store.
It was also obvious that older cashiers weren't going to kill themselves ringing people up.
They called for help but nobody came.

I've seen this so many places. This might not apply to online sales, but we all have been burned by slow shipping.
My only advice, start early!

Everyone on onlyfans.

Holiday spending will be down, I know it will be, the amount we spend is way down and we only have a handful of gifts to get yet. I'm going to drive to a factory store to get the last few gifts at cost without the middle man. So we are contributing very little to the holiday spending in the US.

Normally we spend quite a bit, but not this year with groceries up 50%, I know some will say 8% but they aren't regular grocery shoppers, most of the groceries I normally buy, I have noticed are up about 50%. I have switched to going to Aldi and getting off, off brands, but still the bill is crazy.

I'm giving the relative hosting Christmas week this year nearly $1000 to pay for groceries for the family for the week long family activities for this year. They are a young family with a handicapped child and could not host it otherwise. So all my excess money is going to groceries for Christmas.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I always get all of my Christmas shopping down in August. But I noticed prices were high and it did seem a bit tighter for me to pull off my normal Christmas shopping haul. I only anticipate things getting tighter. No one in this government gives a darn about the economy, or even really cares, unless it helps China.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Even Facebook is laying off over a thousand workers, up to 12 thousand employees and the news media has not said a darn thing about it, that is about 15% of the work force.

They are no the only ones, is going to be some sad holiday for many households in the nation, but the media is covering up and only crickets about this news, even when the stock market has plunge 60% in the last month.

Many big companies are preparing for a meltdown to save their butts.

And still the biden administration claims the economy is solid

What a way to spend the holidays, thank you biden.

a reply to: marg6043

They are no the only ones, is going to be some sad holiday for many households in the nation, but the media is covering up and only crickets about this news, even when the stock market has plunge 60% in the last month.

Yes it is happening all over the place, what a sh*tty time to lay people off. Not that there is a great time, but at the end of the year and before the holidays seem really insensitive. I know it's for numbers and shareholders...

a reply to: The2Billies

I'm giving the relative hosting Christmas week this year nearly $1000 to pay for groceries for the family for the week long family activities for this year. They are a young family with a handicapped child and could not host it otherwise. So all my excess money is going to groceries for Christmas.

Nothing wrong with grocery money. At least it is something people can use and appreciate.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Did they offer self checkout or store pickup? I have noticed all the stores around me are removing half their checkouts and putting in self checkout and the rest are giving coupons to do store pickup where you pay online. I've seen people ordering as they stand in the store and then they go somewhere else and come back later to pick it up.

I have started going into the stores to look at items and then going online and ordering them whether from the store I just looked at it in or somewhere else because stores do not offer customer service anymore.

I haven't noticed shipment slowdowns for my area but yes, start early folks!

I guess it's not happening in mid-Missouri. As some of you know, I'm in management at Walmart. Our sales are WAY up right now, and we have more employees than ever before. I don't really pay attention to nationwide numbers, but our store is booming. We're offering as much overtime as anyone wants as well.

We had our first "black Friday" type event Wednesday (we split it up into 3 events now) and people were literally buying truck loads of TVs. The last TV purchase I saw was 8 75 inchers.

Two weeks to Thanksgiving, and in the time I was there today (5am to 3pm), we sold almost 150 turkeys!

Don't get me started on the online pickup department. We went from 10 parking spots to 25 recently, and we still have lines of cars waiting for a spot. There were 48 people and their manager scheduled in that department today, and we still had to send 9 more people over there for them to keep up.

I keep hearing about food shortages, but we are literally running out of room to store food of all types.

Where are all of these doom tales happening? It's certainly not central Missouri. I do know some states are having massive flu outbreaks right now, and that could definitely be contributing to some staffing shortages.

I always like to give money cards to all the service workers every Christmas: our mailperson, newspaper delivery man who is here every single morning before 5:00 a.m., all the workers at our local doctor's office, the librarians at our library, our UPS man who is just wonderful, etc. - they work hard all year long. This year looks tougher than usual, but we're not going to leave anyone out, along with family and friends. Perhaps the economy may improve next year??

a reply to: Identified

Did they offer self checkout or store pickup?

No and no, not for these two stores.

a reply to: LordAhriman

Where are all of these doom tales happening?

Your area sounds like it has plenty of employees, definitely not here.
It appeared people did want to buy things and were spending money, but there just aren’t enough workers, anywhere in my vicinity.

BTW, a lot of this was happening before Covid, but the Covid fiasco really pushed a lot of people into early retirement, work at home, single family income, etc.
www.jsonline.com...

Wisconsin could lose 130K working age people by 2030. Here are some steps being taken to attract, retain workers.

That’s a lot for our state and 2030 isn’t that far off!

edit on 11-11-2022 by JAGStorm because: (no reason given)

a reply to: LordAhriman

I am sure china is going to be very please with your store, they are the ones making all the profits.

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: LordAhriman

I am sure china is going to be very please with your store, they are the ones making all the profits.

based.

originally posted by: marg6043
I am sure china is going to be very please with your store, they are the ones making all the profits.

You wouldn't believe how much Walmart pays even a store manager. There are several higher paying positions than that, and theyre not that hard to get. We also employ over 2,000,000 Americans who are spending that money back into the economy. Walmart is bad for small business, yes. Very bad. But most of the money is staying in America.

My solution is to not celebrate holidays at all. I always have to work and the holiday overtime+ bonus is astonishing and I can't pass it up.

a reply to: LordAhriman


Depends on what part of Missouri you are in I think. I have noticed that in the more "ritzy" areas there is a definite lack of employees. In the more blue collar areas not. I cannot say about the "poor" areas since I do not ever go there anymore. And there is a reason for that. They are dangerous. I am betting that most box warehouse type stores close up in those areas after a certain threshold of losses due to theft is crossed.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I dunno, JAG.
I can name two chains that didn't have enough help prior to 2019, one for mostly clothing and the other a craft store..
If they had less help, they would have had to lock the doors long ago.

I think inflated prices will be the deciding factor in Holiday Sales in the 2022 Recession.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

I spent ten years working for a major craft/fabric store chain in the 90's and we always ran short-handed. I found out just before leaving that the store manager had an annual employee budget, and any amount not spent was added to her bonus....for doing 'such a good job'.

Same with any maintenace budget money left over, so the store wasn't in very good repair. Toilets that never worked right, flourescent lights not working and filthy floors year after year.

originally posted by: greendust

My commute to work everyday is 6 miles of soybean and corn fields, and a half a mile or so of highway 50. I'm not in a ritzy area. But it's also a town with a decent sized college. It's Warrensburg.

The only place I won't go in this state is east St Louis. I also accidentally did that once and survived.

Maybe Troost in KC? I can't think of any more dangerous areas.