A Look Back: Black Friday Fiasco

This year’s Black Friday tradition seemed to step on the toes of another popular tradition: Thanksgiving. Stores such as Wal-Mart, Kmart, Macy’s, Kohl’s, etc. opened on Thanksgiving evening starting as early as 5PM. It seems as though the majority of shoppers were not thrilled about Black Friday imposing on their holiday. See Below:

http://www.wisn.com/news/south-east-wisconsin/milwaukee/More-and-more-stores-say-they-will-open-on-Thanksgiving-night/-/10148890/22644502/-/bnhsxd/-/index.html

As you can see, consumers were going back and forth about the early door busters this year, but the numbers don’t lie. It turns out the stores that opened on Thanksgiving night sacrificed their sales on Friday. A survey conducted by The National Retail Federation estimated spending fell by 2.9% this year.

Besides the drop in profit, stores also have to worry more and more about mayhem in their stores. Every year there are stories about fights over the last inexpensive television set or iPad, but Black Thursday only increased the violence. Stores such as Wal-Mart acquired popular hashtags like #Walmartfights and #Brawlmart which had thousands of tags overnight. Police activity and security had to be increased this year more than ever.

So the question is, is all of this worth it for the retailers? Is it worth it for the consumers? We want to know your opinion, so comment below!

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Staff Member Nicole Leo.

Social Media Sparks #SmallBizSaturday Buzz

While millions of shoppers are still running from store to store, sixth Red Bull in hand, taking advantage of the Black Friday sales, Twitter is buzzing with talk of tomorrow's Small Business Saturday sponsored by American Express.

Launched last year by AmEx in the hopes of developing a stronger connection between consumers and their local mom and pop shops, the new shopping holiday has generated a large deal of support from the online community through sites such as Google+, Facebook and Twitter.

The Small Business Saturday Facebook page has over 2.5 million likes and although #BlackFriday is still the top trending topic on Twitter, the hashtag #SmallBizSaturday has only continued to grow in momentum.

Thanks to American Express' efforts, it has been reported that small business merchants saw a 28% sales increase from the previous year and according to The Small Business Saturday Consumer Spend Survey 2011, it was shown that 61% of consumers plan to shop at a locally-owned store on November 26, equating to roughly 89 million people.

American Express has urged small business owners to take part in the social media push by encouraging them to:

• Create Facebook Ads — American Express gave away $100 in free Facebook advertising to the first 10,000 business owners to sign up. For small businesses that don’t yet have Facebook pages, American Express provided a tool that to walk them through the Facebook page creation process.

• Video Tools — Google teamed up with American Express to help create personalized business stories on YouTube.

• Twitter Follow Button — Small business owners were shown how to make sure that their business website included a Twitter button to allow people to easily follow then.

• Check YourBuzz — YourBuzz is a service that helps small businesses reach more customers by enabling them to view and respond to customer reviews and online mentions all from one place.

As an avid supporter of small, locally-owned businesses, I am incredibly excited to see the increasing momentum of the newly-created shopping holiday, especially with the help of a well-organized and implemented social media campaign. What are your thoughts on #SmallBizSaturday and its use of social media? Let us know!

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