- Photo by Negative Space It’s all about the plastic
Where are the long lines of shoppers at Toys are Us, waiting to buy a Tickle Me Elmo, like back in the 1990s? For that matter, where is Toys Are Us? Black Friday, which used to be contained to the day after Thanksgiving now stretches to cover sales from as early as October. It’s confusing to the consumer who wants to buy something at the absolutely lowest price. Now, it’s beginning to look like everything is on sale at all times, or will be soon!
Retailers are using any and all of their creativity to get shoppers to make a purchase. Lots of the shopping is done online, but brick and mortar is NOT and will never be dead.
Would you like most of your online purchases to be shipped for free the next day? Very expensively to the sellers and to the environment, this is becoming the new norm. And the data behind every trend is being measured and analyzed in real-time.
Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday may come and go and morph into new shopping concepts in the all-important fourth quarter of the retail year. But I’m continuing to watch that little corner of the market that is the localist movement…the consumers who are populating the farmers’ markets and small stores and Etsy shops and the unique galleries and pockets of neighborhood commerce in every healthy town in the US and in other countries as well. This movement is not tied to lowest price as much as it is to lowest environmental impact and highest community benefit. Shopping local, shopping small, supporting neighbors who own businesses is more than just a whim. For a directory of locally owned independent businesses in North Carolina’s Triad, visit www.triadlocalfirst.com.