Idaho Could Defy Christmas Shopping Trends

I do some of my Christmas shopping online. Some relatives live far away. I order the gifts and have them sent directly to their homes. In the past, I packaged many of the gifts and mailed them myself, but later decided to cut out the middleman.

Bloomberg says that Black Friday sales and brick-and-mortar stores were abysmal. Amazon, on the other hand, is reporting record sales over the past week. These are national figures. The numbers may not be applicable everywhere, but I believe we probably saw similar activity in Idaho.

It would be easy to say we should do our best to shop locally. It’s also going to have little impact on the trend. People are looking for convenience and bargains.

Still, we do appear to have our share of traditional shoppers. I went to the Magic Valley Mall on the morning of Black Friday. I assumed it wouldn’t be busy at 8:00 a.m. Was I surprised? Additionally, the place was already packed with teenagers. When I was their age, I would’ve been making excuses to sleep in the day after Thanksgiving. I drove by some other plazas and noticed business was brisk.

This was also taking place as we were amid the first big snowfall of the season.

Do we defy the national trend? We certainly are a people of traditions and weather isn’t a deterrent. We’ve also got an exceptionally long shopping season ahead. From now until Christmas, we’ll see if shopping locally has some steam.