method, retailers would reduce the price of an item, knowing that customers would flock to the store for it, and then fill their shopping carts up with other items. Now, consumers are purchasing one or two products at a store and then moving on, according to Phillips. “It’s called ‘surgical shopping,’” she said. Phillips and another local professor, Eric Karson, said they’ve heard sales will increase by at least 2 percent this season. “I think it will be a good Black Friday,” said Karson, an associate professor of marketing at Villanova University. “I think people have been really tight for a long time. I think (retailers) got the right amount of inventory. I think it will be what people expect.” € New applications on cell phones are also changing the way people are shopping this year. For example, Karson said, shoppers can now scan barcodes and take photos of products with their phones and then some applications will find out how much those items cost at other stores. The new applications are making people even more “price conscious,” he said. Joseph Fuhr, a professor of economics at Widener University, said he believes there will be an upward trend in shopping but customers won’t go overboard. He said there are a lot of people shopping for the lowest prices and looking for “things they actually need” and not luxurious items. As people become more comfortable with Internet shopping, Fuhr said more people will be shopping that way instead of “fighting through mobs” at the stores. As for Black Friday, Fuhr said there will be a significant amount of shoppers at stores. “There will be a lot of bargain hunters out there,” he said. Up to 138 million people plan to shop this weekend, according to a preliminary Black Friday survey conducted for the National Retail Federation by BIGresearch. This prediction is higher than the 134 million people who planned to shop last year, according to a release.
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2010 Media Report Villanova School of Business