This has got to be a big business story for 2004. I was reading on the WashingtonPost.com about how groups such as Wal-Mart and Sears and JC Penney are all experiencing lackluster sales this holiday season with their overall profit well below what it was last year at this time. The analysts are saying that the rising costs of gas and food have something to do with the lack of holiday shopping. Some claim that gift cards and online shopping have dominated the pack this year.

Folks, it’s not that hard to understand what’s going on here.

I went to Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving looking to get some ridiculous deals on some of the new DVDs out there. What did I get? $15 for movies that I wouldn’t pay $8 to see when they were in the theatres. Ok, I admit it – I’m a selfish American consumers. But the thing about us American consumers is that you HAVE to hit us with sales at this time of year in order for us to respond! How the hell do you charge $15 – $20 per DVD (at WAL-MART!) for movies that were box office bombs (Garfield, the Day After Tomorrow, Chronicles of Riddick, etc)?

This is what the giant retailers and the retail industry as a whole are forgetting. Sure, you can cut prices on Dick and Jane’s Happy Time Christmas DVD…but who the fuck cares about that? When I got to the store after Thanksgiving I expect to see prices slashed on my favorite author’s books (Harry Potter), on my favorite DVDs (Lord of the Rings), on the “other” DVDs that bombed in the theatres (see titles listed above) – I don’t want to see a bicycle that is 50% off.

Dude, no one cares!

And it’s not like the retailers don’t see the consumers leaving by the droves, either. I went BACK to that same Wal-Mart later on at night on Black Friday and indeed, Garfield and the Day After Tomorrow were both cut down in price to $8.88. They now sit on my DVD rack, but this wasn’t a planned sale or anything – the $8.88 price was an in-house response to horrendous sales in the earlier part of the day.

But until the retailers at large realize that if you don’t give us sales, we won’t buy it, then the analysts can continue to blame gas and food and not the real culprits: the idiots who decided that the 2004 holiday shopping season would be the year of the “not really a sale, but 50% off irregular clothing!” sale.