Black Friday Online Shopping

          I received an email this week from Amazon giving me a preview of their Black Friday sales.  The sales will start on Thanksgiving for folks getting the email.  I understand that Wal Mart is also sending out emails on their sales too.  The last few years merchants have been jumping the gun on Chistmas sales more and more.  They have already made Thanksgiving just a pre Christmas holiday.  When will they make Halloween the same thing?  I know it sounds "Grinchish", if that is even a word, but I tend to avoid stores after Thanksgiving and have only shopped online or from Craigslist for gifts.  Interestingly the growth of online sales for Black Friday have continued to grow even though predictions from past years thought it would be tapering off by now.  In an article on MSNBC in 2007 the thought was that online sales in 2011 would make up 9 % of Christmas sales and yet the reality last year was 35% of the sales on that day were online.  14% were even on smart phones that didn't even exist in 2007.


P.S.

Photo above from the Columbia Archives taken in 1960 of the land that became Columbia.  Looks like the area of Town Center and Wilde Lake