Business

Black Friday Madness: Shop Smart!

Is That Deal Really a Deal?

Happy Thanksgiving! But, more importantly, happy Black Friday Eve. Nothing says the holidays like ditching your family to go wait in line all night for a slightly discounted toaster.

In fact, the number of shoppers between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday this year could be historic, according to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey. However, the deals might not be all they’re cracked up to be.

According to WalletHub’s 2024 Best Things to Buy on Black Friday report, 41% of items at major retailers offer no savings compared with their pre-Black Friday prices. Nothing like marking up the prices before placing them on discount, evening the whole thing out.

“Some Black Friday deals are misleading, as retailers may inflate original prices to make a deal look like a better value,” warned consumer savings expert Andrea Woroch. Another trick is to show the amount of shoppers with the same item in their carts, or that the product is almost out of stock, or even the use of a countdown timer on a deal that doesn’t actually expire. These ploys all create a sense of urgency to help persuade the buyer.

Adam Davis, the managing director at Wells Fargo Retail Finance, said that the holiday has “gotten a little watered down, because retailers want to maximize the selling days. You are easily going to see 20% to 30% off, but not necessarily storewide.” On average, the items on sale are marked down 24%.

Premium brands, such as Nike or Lululemon, will not discount more than 30%, says Lauren Beitelspacher, a professor of marketing at Babson College. Woroch warned that the deals on beauty and footwear are typically better on Cyber Monday anyways.

For those planning a trip, “Travel Tuesday” is believed to be a better time to shop than Black Friday, as many hotels offer 20-30% off, as well as discounts for airfare, cruises, and tour packages.

Woroch also explained that toys are cheapest during the final two weeks of December, while holiday decorations are cheaper the last few days leading up to Christmas (or right after… like Halloween candy on November 1st).

Exercise equipment, linens, and bedding tend to be marked down more during January’s “white sales,” while furniture and mattress deals are often better over other holiday weekends, such as Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day.

If you are going to shop during these next few days, Woroch recommends using a price-tracking browser extension. Also, some retailers like Target have season-long policies that may apply to purchases made up until December 25th, allowing for a price adjustment if the item goes on sale for less than it was during Black Friday.

Regardless, good luck shoppers. It is projected that online sales will reach $9.8 billion, 75% of Americans will shop this weekend, and Amazon will account for 18% of all Black Friday sales.

Tough Times for Kohl’s: CEO Transition Amid Slumping Sales

Leadership Shake-Up Ahead of Holiday Rush

Tough week for Kohls, as its shares fell sharply this week following the company’s earnings missing Wall Street estimates. This was followed by the announcement that CEO Tom Kingsbury will be stepping down in January.

The timing is not great, with the holidays (and Black Friday) right around the corner, which could further help competitors like Walmart and Amazon.

“Our results did not meet expectations, and we’re frankly disappointed sales have been a challenge for us throughout 2024 and weakened further in the quarter,” Kingsbury said in a post-earnings call.

Michaels CEO Ashley Buchanan will take over the company on January 15th, while Kingsbury will shift into an advisory role until his retirement in May 2025. Buchanan held senior executive roles at Walmart and Sam’s Club, before taking over Michaels in 2020. Kingsbury had been in the position since 2022.

Kohls net sales declined more than 4% in August, after sales (at stores that have been open for at least a year) fell more than 5% during the second quarter this year. Kingsbury had blamed this on the fact that “customers exhibited more discretion in their spending.”

Remote Jobs Becoming Scarce

From Boom to Bust: The Decline of Remote Work

Just like it’s always so hard to find the remote, it’s now becoming just as difficult to find remote jobs. Work-from-home positions are getting harder to find, as more companies are calling employees back to the office.

“We have seen a trend in a declining share of remote positions,” says Allison Srivastava, an economist for Indeed. As of last month, 7.8% of all Indeed job postings included working from home in some capacity—down from a peak of 10.4% in February 2022.

However, it is all relative, as that number was only 2.6% prior to the pandemic. So still a lot better than it was.

Tech, Finance, and Accounting, fields that were among the first to embrace remote work, are now some of the ones pulling back. Overall, remote job postings have decreased in 46% of all sectors.

Currently, about a third of all employees work remotely (at least part-time).

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Finance

Macy’s Employee Hides $154 Million in Expenses

Accounting Gone Wrong: $154 Million Discrepancy Uncovered

Think your coworker is bad at their job? Macy’s announced this week that a single employee was responsible for so many accounting irregularities that the company had to delay its quarterly earnings report.

Now, maybe this was intentional by the employee. But they hid $154 million in expenses over the course of three years. In fact, thinking about it... to be able to hide that much money for that long, maybe this person is actually brilliant!

Macy’s said the person is no longer with the company and that they are conducting an independent forensic accounting investigation. The company explained that the errors were “accounting accrual entries” that hid small package delivery expenses and that it was done “intentionally.” The $154 million was part of the $4.4 billion in delivery expenses over the last three years.

The investigation has not found anyone else to be involved.

This certainly doesn’t help a company whose stock is already down nearly 20% this year. This issue “raises the question as to the competence of the company’s auditors,” said Neil Saunders, retail analyst and managing director at GlobalData Retail. “Such things create more nervousness for investors who are already concerned about the company’s performance.”

In Macy’s preliminary earnings report, it was revealed that:

• Quarterly sales had slipped 2.4%.

• The company has already identified hundreds of stores that it plans to close.

Meanwhile:

• Bloomingdale’s sales rose 1.4%.

• Bluemercury sales rose 3.2%.

Shares of Macy’s fell nearly 3% at the open.

Gronk’s $69K Apple Stock Bet Pays Off Big

Gronk Scores Big Off the Field with Smart Investing

NFL legend Rob Gronkowski might play the role of the doofus, but he’s actually been pretty smart when it comes to his finances and business decisions.

He apparently bought $69,000 (of course) of Apple stock on the advice of his contractor and then forgot about it for more than two years (must be nice).

As the story goes, he was having a home built in 2014 while playing for the Patriots, and his contractor was a 25-year-old filled with sage investment advice.

“Every time I saw him… he kept saying, ‘Get Apple. Get Apple,’” Gronk told Fortune. “So after the 50th time, I got it. And let me tell you, it’s the best investment I’ve ever had in my life.”

“I [had] never been involved in stocks. I really didn’t know how stocks work. So I was like, ‘All right, let me do this, man.’” By the time Gronk remembered about this nearly three years later, his $69,000 investment had more than tripled to $250,000. He promptly sold a portion of his stock and kept the rest.

“Now to this day, I have over $600,000 in Apple stock,” Gronk said.

At the time, many investors had feared that Apple would lose its mojo following the death of iconic founder Steve Jobs.

Gronk made roughly $70 million from his NFL contracts, but he also did pretty well with his Apple stock too.

“Let me tell you, he built my house, and he gave all the money back to me by telling me to invest in Apple,” Gronk detailed.

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Politics

Walmart Scales Back Diversity Initiatives

The End of DEI at Walmart?

Walmart is the latest to join the group of companies rolling back their diversity initiatives. However, they might be the most prominent. Walmart said they will no longer use the acronym DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), no longer participate in a corporate equality rating system created by the Human Rights Campaign, and end its $100 million Center for Racial Equity that was previously scheduled to be sunsetted in 2025.

Makes you wonder what it was all for then…? The company will also remove all sexual and transgender products marketed to children, review its supplier diversity program to ensure that no preferences are made based on race, and stop using the term “LatinX.”

This has been quite the swing away from “woke” policies, and Walmart is far from alone, joining Lowe’s, John Deere, Harley Davidson, Jack Daniels maker Brown-Forman, and more.

“We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect,” the company said in a statement. “Every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers, and suppliers, and to be a Walmart for everyone.”

This comes after the US Supreme Court ruled last year against race-conscious student admission programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, explaining they violated the 14th Amendment.

It’s safe to assume that a lot of these companies’ actions were ignited by Donald Trump winning this year’s election.

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