So I read in the news that 2010 was the year that the consumer came back for Christmas.
Really? I haven't seen it. Thursday, I went to Concord to get my oil changed. Traffic was light and I had no trouble or slowdowns. After the oil change, I went to Wally World to do some regular shopping. Without trying I parked about 5 spaces away from the door. There weren't a whole lot of cars there and anyone that came in after me was going to get close to the door too. The store certainly was dead - less people than when I've shopped on Tuesday evening (the least shopped day/time of the week).
Went to Petsmart after that - not many people. Stopped at a couple of other places - trafic, both auto and human was light.
Friday afternoon, I headed back to Concord for something that I had forgotten. Once again traffic was fairly light and I had no trouble taking left hand turns onto or off of the main streets. The place I visited, although busy, was no busier than a regular Saturday. Parking was easy, although not right next to the door (but not far from it - and certainly not in the north 40).
I must admit that I stayed away from the malls (had not need to go), but usually street traffic is a big indicator of how many shoppers there were. The local evening news reported that traffic was heavy with shoppers and the mall in Manchester was packed. Except, the live picture they showed inside the mall showed that although there were a fair amount of people there, there was plenty of elbow room and it didn't seem as if finding parking there would be a big deal. I have certainly been there when it was a whole lot more crowded.
Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't tell that the shoppers came back for this Christmas.
Explanations (not necessarily good ones): 1) Knowing what lemmings we be, "they" are trying to brainwash the American people into getting back into shopping mode by telling us that "Everyone else is doing it!" or 2) People did all of that shopping online.
Glad you didn't have to fight a crowd. I stayed "in", today, so as not to fight crowds. Perhaps I erred?
Posted by: Cop Car | December 26, 2010 at 12:54 PM
I thought #1 was pretty likely myself.
As for #2, if they did online shopping, they did it early. The next door neighboor works for UPS and he had several light days before Christmas and they called him and asked if he wanted last week off because the volume was so light.
Posted by: bogie | January 01, 2011 at 07:05 AM