The bigger influence on retail: Black Friday, or Sandy?
New retail sales numbers were released today. One question is how much of all that shopping was caused by Black Friday and how much was a result of disaster-related spending created by Hurricane Sandy?
There’s no doubt that some stores got a bump in sales after Hurricane Sandy — places like Home Depot.
“I’ll give you an example.” says Home Depot merchandise manager Dave Moore. “Where we might send in two trucks of drywall to a store, we are sending in 5 to 10 trucks per week.”
Moore says many of the 400 plus stores in the Northeast are doing more business than normal. But Sandy-related spending, says Bernard Baumohl, is a much smaller piece of the pie than Black Friday sales.
“Because Sandy affected mostly the Northeast, but we’re talking about sales nationwide.”
Baumohl is chief economist at The Global Economic Group. He says overall, consumers are much more cautious this year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are not ready to spend more. “I think there’s a huge amount of pent up demand in households.”
Once a decision is made on the Fiscal Cliff. Baumohl says, “We could see a boomerang reaction where all that pent up demand gets unleashed.”
So if you’re disappointed in that Christmas gift, just wait.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
