…. that ’story’ is repeated everywhere in the American media — but the source of that data is biased and unreliable.
The media blindly accepts these numbers as gospel.

But that 3% number doesn’t come from actual sales data from retailers — but merely from an e-mailed “survey” of some shoppers… who ’self-report’ their spending. The annual survey is sponsored by a big-retailer public-relations firm (National Retail Federation), which is far from unbiased… and has a poor record of accurately forecasting Xmas sales. There are huge problems with the methodology used to generate those NRF annual XMAS sales figures.

The “Comscore” company offers a much better data source… relying on actual online sales numbers from retailers.
Comscore data shows barely a 1% increase in online sales this year over last. In a couple of days,

Master Card will issue its “ShopperPulse” data — an actual measurement of what people spent (on their MC Credit Card) and has proven to be more reliable than either foot traffic, surveys and other biased sources.

Personally for myself I bought over half of my presents from the thrift stores or from ebay (almost new). And I spent about 60% less this year than last year – yeah!

Its pretty much a 1 person effort, my husband seems to be on track for doing his business as usual… waiting till we are days away from leaving town and ordering a bunch of stuff online, but he could surprise me.

Definitely no spending this year on holiday decor, or buying gifts for anyone not family or very closest friends.

We avoided Black Friday sales (even online), but I am glad to hear that it was not down overall, any positive news can only help right? Rightfully overshadowed by the death of the Wal-mart employee in NY, but in the long run it might prevent spenders from clamping down later on. Back to the crowd mentality comment on the other article, this could apply to holiday spending too. If people think that others are spending equal or more on the holidays as in years past, then it must be ok for them to do that too.

Pick up ANY newspaper and show me an article detailing how many planes didn’t crash yesterday, or how many gas stations weren’t robbed yesterday. You won’t find it, because that sort of good news doesn’t sell.

though I didn’t even shop on Black Friday. I slept in. I did however get some good “open box” deals on returns from the few days after Black Friday.

2- Yes, I am cutting back. Seeing as I’m unemployed, the only gifts I’m buying this year are for my nieces & nephews (1 small thing each, some of which have already been purchased), and for my son.