The Attractiveness Of "Black Five" Is Declining Day By Day, And New York'S High-End Department Stores Show Their Magic Power To Restore Passenger Flow.

The first Friday after Thanksgiving is known as "black Friday", marking the beginning of the end of the US shopping season.

For us department stores, "black five" is an important opportunity for them to promote sales every year, but because of the impact of e-commerce and some new competitors, the department store's "black five" marketing activities are gradually losing its role. Even though they are rushing to make a fuss in the festival window, holding a grand celebration, and even cooperate with the mainstream media, they can not prevent further decline in passenger traffic.

Before this year's "black five" arrived, Deloitte (DDT) released a survey: 79% of US respondents plan to spend five days in weekend shopping, which is higher than last year. The estimated expenditure per household is US $415, similar to the forecast before last year's holiday. Respondents plan to spend 53% of their spending on online shopping and 43% for physical store shopping. 64% of the respondents plan to shop in Target Corp. and Walmart Inc. stores, while 54% plan to shop online, while only 32% plan to go to traditional department stores.

On the day of "black five" in November 29th, in New York, department store Bloomingdale "s" held a large-scale musical performance at Lexington Avenue in Lexington, and invited singer John Legend to sing for hundreds of spectators outside the store on cold nights. Bloomingdale "s also has a space theme holiday display in its famous shop window, decorated with neon lights, robots and models dressed in futuristic fashion.

Outside dozens of blocks, Macy 's (Messi department store) attracts consumers with classic Santa Claus and reindeer. Macy 's has launched marketing activities in 700 department stores across the United States.

The boutique Saks Fifth Avenue and Disney (Disney) and its newly released animated blockbuster "Frozen 2 (ice and snow 2)" jointly bet that the animated character Elsa could give magic to the building that nearly collapsed by 60%. (see "ornate ambition": the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York has a new valuation of $1 billion 600 million, which is nearly 60% compared to that of five years ago) Saks Fifth Avenue even brought Elsa voice. They invited Elsa's dubbed Idina Menzel to sing several songs, and then lit the city sky with fireworks. The Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store's $250 million renovation project is about to end.

Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store, has also displayed its festive costumes in the Fifth Avenue of New York, with its consistently exaggerated sense of art. Bergdorf Goodman called the exhibition a year of preparation, presenting their "highly praised fantasy tradition". The event featured a magic ball machine, a sculpture garden and a nostalgic pajamas party.

Due to the closure of brand stores such as Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Henri Bendel and Massimo Dutti, several shops in Fifth Avenue in New York are vacant. To cover up the depression, the Fifth Avenue Association, representing the majority of retail businesses on this street, put holiday exhibits on the empty display windows.

New York's newly opened two high-end department stores, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, did not have Street windows, but they managed to arrange some holiday decorations. In October, Nordstrom opened a flagship store in a new skyscraper near Central Park in Central Park. The theme of this store is Scandinavian and its size is very large. In order to welcome the black five flagship store, more than 700 decorations, 120 trees and 150 chandeliers were arranged, and snowflakes, candles and garlands were covered in the book.

Some people opened their business in a drum and some people left the scene. Last year, the 100 year old luxury goods department Lord & Taylor closed 23 chain stores, including the flagship store in Fifth Avenue, New York.

On the day of "black five", Craig Johnson, President of Customer Growth Partners, a retail research firm, estimated that the total consumption of "black five" of US consumers was about $32 billion, of which 7 billion to 8 billion US dollars came from online sales. Adobe Analytics reported that the online spending of the US "black five" increased by about 19% over the same period last year, reaching US $7 billion 400 million.

Obviously e-commerce has caused a great impact on department stores. The rise of cosmetics chains such as Ulta Beauty and Sephora also hit the department store's beauty business. Full price clothing was replaced by discount stores such as discount retailer TJ Maxx and second-hand luxury consignment platform The Real Real.

Old luxury goods department Barneys New York this year, "black five" will launch the highest discount in history. In addition to the brand products of LVMH group, all other products in the physical store have 35% off or thirty percent off discount, which is much larger than ten percent off or 5% off of the previous ones. Maybe it is to light up the new store's big store closing measures. It was once a luxury palace in New York, but now there is no festive atmosphere in the window. Instead, there are some eyeshot signs that read "clearance sale".

Forrester Research retail analyst Sucharita Kodali commented: "historically, department stores were most influential in 70s and 80s, and now they are gradually declining, so" black five "has become their lifesaving straw. But now, department stores have to consider what "black five" means to them.