Excess Inventory... US Already in Black Friday Mode

[Asia Economy New York=Special Correspondent Joselgina] The U.S. retail industry, suffering from excess inventory, has already entered Black Friday mode, the biggest discount event of the year.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 10th (local time) that although Black Friday (November 25) is still more than six weeks away, retailers have begun discount events one after another.

Major retailer Target announced that it will start Black Friday sales from this day, selling electronics and toys at half price. This is three weeks earlier than last year. Earlier, Target had warned of excess inventory issues during its earnings announcement and had forecasted large-scale discount events. Target has about 2,000 offline stores in the U.S. Walmart also started discount events this week for holiday shoppers.

This is not unrelated to Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce company, holding its second Prime Day event this week. WSJ analyzed that retailers have moved up Black Friday sales to compete with Amazon. Amazon held a large-scale discount event called Prime Day for Prime members in July, and will hold a 'Prime Early Access Sale' for two days on the 11th and 12th. This is the first time a large-scale discount event is held again in October.

Soaring inflation, excess inventory problems troubling retailers, and changes in consumer shopping trends after the pandemic are also analyzed as reasons for moving up the sales. WSJ reported, "The trend from in-store shopping to online shopping accelerated due to the pandemic, and retailers' Black Friday strategies have also changed."

On the same day, Morgan Stanley said in a report that as retailers competitively launch discount events, their retail revenues may decrease, calling this a 'war to the bottom.' However, it pointed out that if they do not participate in aggressive discount events, they will bear excessive maintenance costs due to excess inventory.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.