"Retailers Blame Later Easter for Sluggish Sales"
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Is anyone else as tired as I am about these kinds of absurd excuse making from certain cretins in the retail sector? Jeez, its as if they don’t know what a calendar is.
ATTENTION ALL RETAILERS:
IN 2007 and 2009, Easter Sunday is in April also.
2007: Easter Sunday is April 8th.
2009: Easter Sunday is April 12.
PLEASE PLAN ACCORDINGLY.
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Might that help? I dunno. Perhaps in the future, they can check this site occasionally.
Of course, this excuse making is just that; No one believes that these retail sales shortfalls were a surprise that could have been avoided with a $7.95 yearly calendar from Staples. Anyone with more than 2 brain cells to rub together knows that these sorts of excuse are proof positive that some people are completely and totally full of shit. (sorry for the use of technical jargon).
So too are excuses about the Olympics hurting sales at a restaurant chain (run a promotion, you morons). I can almost give those retailers a pass who blamed Reagan’s funeral — but then again, I would have put some Jelly Beans, American flags, DVDs and/or a Reagan Biography on sale and advertised a special Presidential Sales event. Of course, it was totally unforeseeable that a 93 year old man with an very advanced case of a terminal disease might die.
We also know that in the North, in the Winter, it snows — how about budgeting for that possibility? Sell shovels and winter coats. But please stop making iditiotic excuses. You only make yourselves look foolish . . .
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UPDATE April 11, 2006 8:09pm
Goldman Sachs says: "Late Easter Flattens Soda Sales"
Soda? Now Easter is to blame for soda sales.
I say "Bah, Humbug."
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Source:
Retailers Blame Later Easter for Sluggish Sales
ELLEN BYRON
WSJ, April 7, 2006; Page A3
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114432185573518717.html
I can’t access the WSJ online. WAH!!! I’ll take your word for it, however: I’m very suggestable.
Watch for this headline in later in 2006-2007: “Retailers Blame $600 Billion Shortfall in Mortgage Equity Withdrawals for Slumping Sales.” Now that’s a headline I might believe.
as far as I understand the retail sales are adjusted to the fact that Easter is in April this year; even CNBC’s big shot Mark had to be corrected by Bob; better check it out
And traders could stop trying to make sense of volatility with “market corrections”, “long cycles” and “profit-taking” :)
Barry,
Perhaps they should blame Shrek, planetary alignments or the locusts??
The Nattering One
for your info
Seasonal adjustment is the process of estimating and then removing from a time series influences that are systematic and calendar related. Observed data needs to be seasonally adjusted as seasonal effects can conceal both the true underlying movement in the series, as well as certain non-seasonal characteristics which may be of interest to analysts
I have always wondered if we will ever see a retailer explain a really good set of sales figures by saying “of course this was mainly due to the good weather and an early Easter”.
The Onion had the best all-time parody of this kind of reporting:
Rotation of Earth Plunges Entire North American Continent into Darkness
I thought those comments were a reminder to investors that didn’t have a calender. The stores know when Easter is; they have sales planned around it. They are just pointing out that comparing numbers from last March (which included Easter) to numbers from this March (which did not include Easter) could lead to someone think sales are declining more than they really are. Ideally, they should mention this when they are posting their April results too, because you could make the same mistake of comparing a month without Easter-boosted sales to a month with Easter-boosted sales and conclude that growth is higher than it really is.
I haven’t been watching the market news for long enough to know if they mention the movement of Easter every year. It makes sense to me to point out factors which will skew the results so that people can draw more accurate conclusions from the data.
I second jkw’s comment.
Yes to jkw and Crack. And kudos for a useful counter-example to PlanMaestro. The “everybody is dumber than me” approach to commentary wears thin sometimes. In reality, everybody deals with mundane stuff part of the time. If you already know their mundane stuff, you just move on.