Retailers bring their A game for Black Friday

Like children anticipating Christmas morning, struggling retailers have high hopes that Santa will bring them what they desperately want this holiday season – customers. To help make their wish come true, retailers are offering deeper discounts as the holiday shopping season officially opens today. Many are opening before dawn, offering free gifts with purchase or deferring payments on big-ticket items in the hope of getting shoppers in the door.

No matter the method, retailers that have taken a hit in a recessionary economy are hungry for a share of holiday spending. With just four weekends until Christmas and the start of Hanukkah, retailers are also anxious about the pace and scope of sales reports the Daily News.

“The reality is this is a very challenging environment,” said Stevan Buxbaum, vice president of the Buxbaum Group, a retail liquidator and consultant based in Agoura Hills. “It’s going to take the best possible merchants to make something out of this.”

That means retailers will have to balance the promotions and discounts against earnings and profits – a juggle that could be more difficult than usual as consumers spend less.

The National Retail Federation projects that holiday sales will rise a modest 2.2 percent over last year, to $470 billion, with the number of shoppers over this weekend expected to fall to 128 million from 135 million last year. But Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia Corp., expects retail sales to fall 0.5 percent for November and December – the first decline in holiday sales since 1982.

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