Wednesday, November 21, 2012
There’s a game plan, an emergency plan, and lots of coffee. It’s Black Friday!
It’s the Super Bowl of shopping, the Oscars for retailers. It’s a time when below-the-radar soccer moms and soft-spoken grandpas take to the shopping cart raceways, weaving in and out of the throngs in search of the Holy Grail, that larger-than-life bargain. There’s a game plan, an emergency plan, and lots of coffee. It’s Black Friday! Black Friday hype increases every year, and this year, retailers are upping their game by opening earlier than ever. While Black Friday has traditionally begun the day after Thanksgiving, Wal-Mart was the first to announce they would be opening at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving to accommodate those shoppers looking for both great deals and a social experience. Now Target and Kmart have followed suit, opening Black …
Monday, November 12, 2012
Six in 10 Americans say they'd love to receive a gift card for Christmas. What do you think? Great gift or easy way out?
Have you spent hours looking for that perfect gift for that special someone? If so, you might be wasting your time. According to the National Retail Federation, requests for gift cards to stores such as Target, Best Buy, Walmart and Kohl's are up this holiday season. "When it comes to holiday wish lists, the usual culprits top the list each year: clothing, books, DVDs, video games, and electronics, but there’s one that stands out more than any other – gift cards," the NRF's annual holiday shopping forecast says. According to the survey, six in 10 (59.8%) of those polled say they’d like to receive gift cards this year, up from 57.7 percent last year and the most in the survey’s history. Locally, Hazelwood residents go both ways. Holiday …
Friday, November 25, 2011
With Nov. 26 being Small Business Saturday, some Hazelwood business are preparing their promotions.
Hazelwood small businesses are gearing up and no, it's not for Black Friday. Across the country Nov. 26 is dedicated to the small businesses helping keep the economy afloat with Small Business Saturday. In honor of Small Business Saturday, a day dedicated to supporting small businesses on the busiest shopping weekend of the year, Better Business Bureau (BBB) is spreading awareness and advising consumers to support the small businesses in their area. Last year as Small Business Saturday approached, Strini's Jewelers, a family-owned store located at Elm Grove Plaza on Lindbergh, said it takes a more traditional approach when it comes to bringing in business. When interviewed last year, owner Ray Strini told Patch he avoids fads in …
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Black Friday falls on the day after Thanksgiving and has earned the reputation of being the busiest shopping day of the year.
Black Friday, the name, was adopted from an accounting term red ink, which denotes a negative profit margin. "In the black" denotes a positive profit margin, and many retailers make or break their sales goals between Thanksgiving and Christmas, with the season kicking off on the Friday after Thanksgiving. So for those of you willing and able to help your local economy on this day, here's some tips of making the most of it. 1. Check Out the Ads: Your local Thanksgiving Day newspaper will be stuffed like the turkey on the table with ads, coupons, and circulars. This will also help organize your day to maximize savings with many stores offering special discounts that are time specific. In the age of technology almost any store also has the ad…
