If you’re like most Americans, this blessed holiday season the grown-ups in your family agreed to buy presents “just for the kids” while everyone else huddled beneath a single thin quilt like Charlie Bucket’s grandparents. As a result, newly released holiday sales figures were unbelievably sucky. Congratulations, consumers! Your failure to continue to borrow and spend as usual has finally ruined even our discount retailers.
Analysts said liquidation sales at bankrupt retailers like Mervyns and Linens ’n Things took shoppers away from even low-priced stores like T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s. Sales were down 8.1 percent at J.C Penney, 7.3 percent at Sears Holdings Corporation, 5.8 at Bon-Ton, 5 percent at Dillard’s, and 1.4 at Kohl’s.
And look, all the sellers of cheap cotton henley shirts that retain their shape through exactly two (2) washings and wearings also felt the pinch:
Sales at mall retailers also fell by double-digits, including Abercrombie and Fitch (down 24 percent), American Eagle Outfitters (down 17 percent), Gap (down 14 percent), Wet Seal (down 12.5 percent), Zumiez (down 12.3 percent), and Limited Brands and Pacific Sunwear (both down 10 percent).
You poor slobs couldn’t even bother to prop up the preferred discount stores for liberal yuppies, Target and Costco.
Thanks to American consumers and their new-found thrift, Christmas next year has been cancelled.
Holiday Sales Were Dismal, New Retail Figures Show [New York Times]
{ 64 comments }
I bought all my Christmas presents at Brooks Bros. I am an elitist.
Can we cancel all the holidays except St. Patrick’s Day?
Has anyone told O’Reilly about this?
Strange. You’d think with rockets raining on Israel, this would have been the best Christmas ever.
How were the chocklit sales? Pumas can’t live on bread alone.
Of course, malls full of mass-murdering, child-touching Santas didn’t exactly help either.
Bad consumers! Bad!
I don’t care if Christmas is canceled. It’s not like I’ll have a job to get the day off from anyway.
[re=212765]shanemacgowan[/re]: Yes, but due to recession cutbacks St. Patrick’s Day may be celebrated with green colored Natty Light only. Okay, maybe Bud Lite for you elitists out there.
I really wish economists would make their mind up. All year, I hear nothing but “Americans aren’t saving blah blah blah”, then when Christmas comes around we’re supposed to sell the cat and buy presents on home equity loans.
It was Thrift store goodies and tequila shots for all this year, and we were happy to get them.
Fortunately, given our current economic situation or lack thereof, some very caring Americans are now focusing on fixing the most important aspect of our economy, our space shuttlez
http://www.obamanasa.org
It’s a UserVoice site to pick a NASA Administrator like the hilarious RNC TruckNutz For All site, so please go and make Ken Layne president of Uranus and put TruckNutz on our hilariously expensive Mars Rovers.
Everyone was waiting for the post-christmas trucknutz sale.
(note: this is the only trucknutz joke I will ever make)
[re=212777]Hart88[/re]:
I really wish economists would make their mind up.
Consider this a reminder that economists are just as drunk as the rest of us.
Your cheap cotton henley shirts will keep their shape better when you hand wash them in the river on your soon-to-be-washboard stomach while humming, “Sinners ya better get ready…”
Not only that, but I hear George Bailey’s Savings & Loan is teetering on the edge of insolvency.
[re=212785]Cape Clod[/re]: yeah, but old man Potter is giving 50 cents on the dollar
Just an FYI for all the teens who HAVE to have the name brands like Gap, A&F, Wet Seal, etc.: WalMart now sells Ocean Pacific (OP) & if it was good enough for me in the 80s, it’s good enough for you now! Now might be a good time for all the good mommies & daddies out there to have the ‘being fed is more important than being fashionable’ talk.
[re=212764]loquaciousmusic[/re]: Once I heard that Brooks Brothers was owned by Marks&Spenser’s any preconception of elitism was forever lost.
Why Santy Claus, why?
ALT-text fail.
[re=212778]Hamster[/re]: Our Christmas was mostly food and alcohol-centeric and it was awesome. Great dinners are much better gifts than jewelry and sets of body wash; especially since most of us are liberal winos.
[re=212765]shanemacgowan[/re]: And Repeal Day! Let’s not forget that one. I mean, until the day after, when we’ve forgotten or are trying to forget what we did on that day. Not until then.
[re=212788]Texan Bulldoggette[/re]: I think Dollar General now has Bugle Boy as its house brand if you’re really feeling spendy. …or if you’ve been looking for a good pair of tapered jeans to cinch and roll-up.
Buh-bye malls. Hello Co-ops.
Even Wal-de-Mart didn’t meet expectations although their sales actually went up (a teensy weensy.)
What makes matters worse is that the Chinese have started to back away from US America bonds.
Ha Ha I am wrecking your economys and improving the feng shui in our homes and I don’t care. I gave cash to my grown kids who did not need it but were thrilled to not have a pile of crap to get rid of just about now. So we could give presents we packed up stuff we didn’t want any more and put it in old gift bags so we didn’t even have to buy wrapping paper. I received some adorable empty tin cans which I will treasure for the rest of the week. Yes, we got a tree. A huge fucking thing purchased after dark on Christmas Eve. We at 102415 feel the upstate tree farmers, the liquor stores and the pate makers all need our support in these tough times.
Tell me, do all Abercrombie and Fitch stores have shaved, shirtless guys dancing in the entrance? Or is this just a juicy feature in the lands of the Foreigns?
For years I had only associated them with baseball cap wearing frat boys who lived in remote college towns where A&F has some bizarre snob appeal (most likely because it is the only men’s clothing store in the local mall).
The more overpriced the store (Abercrombie needs to show me in writing why I should be willing to by their henleys and not Hanes’), the bigger the fail. I’m ascared, but there is some unfortunate justice in there.
…everyone on Christmas list got gifts from my neighborhood 7-11!
[re=212779]Car Ramrod[/re]: I just voted for a legitimate pick of Steve Squyres, but got 7 more votes on this computer to go. I don’t have time to write a fake resume for SKS right now, but go for it & I’ll send over the votes.
Support your local industries. For Christmas I turned my lawn into an ice rink and paid two neighborhood kids to fight until one lost a tooth.
[re=212794]Robobot[/re]: Hell yes, plenty of food, booze, hilarious thrift gifts, and a pellet gun in the backyard made for the most awesome holiday ever. The collapse of society has made me realize that my priorities are the shit.
So, how is the save more spend less bad? Every since I was knee high to a grasshopper, the big moan has been about Americans not saving enough. Now we are and it sucks? The less plastic shit in the world, the better. We have too much plastic stuff as it is now.
…since Christmas was canceled this year, can we just trade it for a future holiday of our choosing? I want an extra Halloween; it gives women an excuse to wear slutty and totally inappropriate outfits while getting shit-faced obliterated!
My christmas was a dinner with my boss. Top that.
I gave everyone cans of Hobo Beans after I invested my life’s savings in Hobo Beans at Wonkette’s recommendation.
This might mean that people have stopped buying crap that doesn’t last. Duh. My wardrobe is smaller than Mao’s.
my brand new peacoat from jCrew begs to differ
[re=212817]AngryBlakGuy[/re]: Carnivale!!!! it’s right around the corner. Nothing is sluttier or more shit faced.
[re=212765]shanemacgowan[/re]: [re=212776]Robobot[/re]: We’ll always have Mardi Gras! Wait. What?
If this downturn does one thing, hopefully it will kill the desire of our fellow Americans to bury each other in useless, cutesy, chintzy crap. Do we really need plastic smiling santas and a reindeer oven mitt that ONLY GETS BROUGHT OUT IN DECEMBER?
[re=212838]102415[/re]: …Trinidad Carnival or Brazilian Carnival? Shyt it doesn’t even matter, we can do both!
I got shanked in the spleen for questioning the divine appointment of the governing Hobo Council. But I did get a new bindle, so our post-apocalyptic financial wasteland does have it’s peaks and valleys.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
This is one elitist group! I told you that National Wholesale Liquidators went out of business- that is a discount store. It made Marshalls look like Neiman Marcus. It was the kind of the place that probably sold poison Chinese toothpaste after the Dollar stores got rid of it.
You know, I bet a lot of people didn’t get the gifts they really wanted or needed. That’s why I propose we stop just talking and take some direct action to relieve human suffering in this great nation. Specifically, we need to steal TruckNutz off crackermobiles and securely attach them to PUMA cars. It’s a win for a everybody!
[re=212829]tiger[/re]:
Next year’s Macy’s parade will look like that Cultural Revolution parade at the end of ‘The Last Emperor’; Mao’s cheerleaders and all.
Presumably the Grinch’s heart will grow three sizes very soon.
[re=212817]AngryBlakGuy[/re]: Don’t worry. With the Depression all but assured those holidays will be known as “Mondays.”
The real question is did every guy go out and buy a gas-guzzling SUV for $60,000, tie a huge red ribbon around it out in the driveway and give it to their wife as she choked back sobs of joy in her bathrobe? According to the advertisements I saw over the holiday season that’s what Christmas is really all about. Any gift short of that is an epic fail.
I just got a big fat cat-o-logue from Lumber Liquidators in the mail – and I don’t even own a house! Or a floor! Or even a tool! I don’t even have any lumber I need liquidated!
Those are discount stores? I’m so fucked.
Corporate America whines endlessly about falling sales, yet they spend insane amounts of advertising cash. May I be chosen to cast the first Ped Egg at these incompetent business-as-usual schleps?
Apparenlty even real Americans, choosing to eat instead of give away expensive presents, did not properly celebrate the birthday or the first prom date or whatever, of their Saviour. They will all burn in Hell.
Wait, wait, I’m missing something. Are cheap cotton Henley shirts actually supposed to have a shape?
You want a discount store, go to the Dollar General Store. I cleaned up after Christmas.
[re=212876]BigBrainOnBrad[/re]: Makes the string of Ben Wa balls I gave my wife seem pale in retrospect.
[re=212798]ManchuCandidate[/re]: If our Chinese masters quit buying our worthless T-bills we are truly in trouble!
What would you do with liquid lumber, anyway? Drink it? It makes no sense!
[re=212779]Car Ramrod[/re]: I nominated Ken Layne. I am such a useless, arse-licking tool.
Down 10% at Limited Brands? Laydeez, you must immediately go to Victoria’s Secret and purchase underthings so that Limited can continue to employ models. Tx. (I’d do it myself, but I’m banned).
I got a coffee cup that says “Jesus Shaves”. When hot liquids are inside, he loses the beard. This was re-gifted to me and shall continue being re-gifted until forever.
Zumiez? What the hell is Zumiez? Clearly I do not spend enough time in malls.
[re=212854]AngryBlakGuy[/re]: Why can’t we have a nice wonkette convention in Trinidad??? I’m thinking you are so right Mr.Blakguy.
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