Caught On Tape: Chaos, Multiple Fights Break Out Among "Black Friday Zombies"

It’s Black Friday, and in keeping with the Holiday weekend tradition, media commentator Mark Dice traveled to Wal-Marts and other stores to document the “zombie apocalypse” of half-awake consumers hell-bent on elbowing past their peers so they can be sure to get the best deals on electronics, books, video games, clothes and any number of other popular holiday gift items. Of course, as Dice points out, many of the same deals can also be found on a little website called Amazon.com without the hassle of pushing through crowds.

After last year’s disappointing sales totals, retail analysts expect holiday weekend spending to come roaring back this year: According to Fox Business, spending per capita is expected to climb 47% compared with last year’s holiday weekend, up from $505 to $743. An estimated 164 million people are planning to shop or are considering shopping during the Thanksgiving weekend, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation. In a rare, positive piece of news for America"s beleagured retailers, Americans had already spent $1.52 billion, which is a 17% increase from last year. The warm autumn means fashion sellers are looking to offload masses of unsold coats, boots and woollens.

But for everyone who isn’t participating in the retail madness, plenty of videos and images have already emerged on social media of brawls, fistfights and stampedes in the US and around the world as the traditional Black Friday hysteria sets in.

The Riverchase Galleria in Alabama, a group of shoppers shouted and pounded one another with their fists while an unlucky few were trampled.

Meanwhile, a midnight brawl broke out at one California mall as two shoppers brutally pummeled each other.

Of course, the carnage wasn’t limited to the US. One video circulating on Twitter depicted a mass of shoppers swarming a game store in Cape Town, South Africa.

 

Black Friday on Flakka Level. pic.twitter.com/1oBQ9xScLD

— Sandile ???????? (@SirVincent_M) November 24, 2017

 

...and a multiperson brawl erupted outside the Eastgate Shopping Center in Johannesburg.

 

A scuffle breaks out outside The Checkers in the Eastgate Shopping Centre. #BlackFriday @TeamNews24 Plenty of security guards on duty. pic.twitter.com/R6ihJUkCte

— Sharlene Rood (@ssharim) November 24, 2017

 

At another American all, a scuffle broke out over...toilet paper?

 

Scuffle breaks out over toilet paper #BlackFriday: https://t.co/18qK0R7zbi via @YouTube

— Kachi Sam A (@samonyeoo) November 24, 2017

 

One radical feminist protester hijacked Black Friday sales at a Kiev sweet shop by throwing items around topless. The protester identified with the Femen movement, which has staged many similar protests in Russian and Ukraine.
The shop - owned by Roshen - was named after former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, whose family famously owned a chocolate empire, as the Daily Mail pointed out.

 

At a shop in Sao Paulo, Brazil"s biggest city, huge crowds can be seen struggling to get hold of huge Samsung TVs.

In another of the images, a worker climbed a stack of electronics and attempted to marshal the chaos by using a vuvuzela horn. But his efforts failed to stem the swarming crowds.

According to local media reports quoted by the Mail, at least 68% of the Brazilians bought something during Black Friday, a number that compared with the 61% of last year and shows a slow increase of the economy.

Even in Athens, where the shaky Greek economy has only recently returned to growth, shoppers lined up in search of deals. Photos taken show some happy customers carrying away TVs.

 

In the UK, where Black Friday isn’t as chaotic as it is in other parts of the world, shoppers are expected to spend nearly £8 billion this weekend. In New York City, Macy"s Herald Square finally opened its doors at 5pm on Thanksgiving Day for thousands of early Black Friday shoppers in search of amazing sales, door buster deals, and limited-time-offers. Macy"s CEO Jeffrey Gennnette has said that spending so far on Black Friday is already slightly better than it was last year.

But the day is still young, and as the hours pass, we imagine more outrageous stories of brawls, shootings and other shocking behavior will emerge on social media...

...and we"ll be here to chronicle all of it.
 

Here Is The Retail "Chart Of Doom", Now With Toys "R" Us

After claiming its 27th victim of the year in the form of the Toys "R" Us bankruptcy filed earlier this morning, the Amazon-induced retail bloodbath of 2017 has just turned full-on apocalyptic.  According to data aggregated by Reorg First Day, the Toys "R" Us filing brings the total amount of defaulted retail debt to over $14 billion so far in 2017. 

All of which should be sufficient to drive U.S. equity markets to fresh new highs before the end of the day.

Meanwhile, according to Bankrupty Data, Toys "R" Us marks the third largest U.S. retail bankruptcy in history, based on assets, exceeded only by Kmart and Federated Department Stores...

...and here is how the 2017 retail bankruptcies have stacked up.

Of course, the real question is whether the 3rd largest retail bankruptcy in U.S. history is enough to once again push Amazon"s Jeff Bezos to the top the world"s list of biggest douches wealthiest men.

Macy's Tumbles After Issuing Profit Margin Warning

Another day, another guidance cut by a retailer, this time from Macy"s which during its investor meeting, warned investors that the company"s gross margin could be below the forecast given just this part February, some 60-80 basis points lower.

According to Fly on the Wall, Macy’s CFO Karen Hoguet said at investor day that the gross margin for the fiscal year ending January 2018 is trending 60bps-80bps below FY17, with the 2Q rate ~100bps below 2QFY17. One possible explanation: liquidation of excess inventory as the company is unable to sell enough product per planned prices. Indeed, this was confirmed moments ago by a statement made on the investor call:

• MACY"S INC EXEC SAYS NOT SATISFIED WITH INVENTORY LEVELS IN STORES

The silver lining: Macy’s, at least for now, reaffirmed its FY18 sales and EPS forecast, and said it plans for exclusive product to reach 40% by 2020.

Some other details from the investor meeting per Bloomberg:

• Macy’s says it can expand gross margin on apparel side of business over time, but can’t say when beauty margin will grow: mgmt speaking at investor day.


• Excess inventory, beauty markdowns hurt margin forecast


• There is a place for both Amazon, Macy’s to succeed


• Hoping to scale Backstage next year; beauty working very well in Backstage, partly due to bath & body; home products also working


• Herald Square property getting more valuable


• Ralph Lauren, Michael Kors are part of M’s power brands; they may be having trouble right now, but confident they will turn, just like Tommy Hilfiger did


• Nothing in forecast that is counting on traffic changing from current trends


• Buy online/pickup in stores capability will be available by year end


• Looks at product every day with an eye towards "editing" SKUs


• Not satisfied with inventory turns

The market did not take the warning in stride, and M stock has tumbled to session lows, down as much as 5% to lowest intraday since mid-May.

Macy's Surges On Hudson's Bay Takeover Report; Would Add To Portfolio Including Saks And Lord & Taylor

With Macy"s making the headlines in the past few days on speculation it was shopping itself for a potential buyer, a thesis first laid out by David Einhorn one year ago, moments ago the WSJ reported that Hudson"s Bay, the Canadian owner of Saks and Lord and Taylor, has made a takeover approach for the landmark retailer, sending the shares of both companies surging, and tripping a circuit breaker for M, which was lst up just shy of 5%.

The likely catalyst for the sale is that Macy"s veteran CEO, Terry Lundgren, announced last June he would be stepping down later this year.

As the Post recently reported,  Lundgren is trying to avoid an ugly board shakeup that could tarnish his 13-year legacy and turn the largest US department store into a battleground littered with discarded top brass.

Lundgren, who had not planned to cap his tenure with a sale, has recently become open to offers from potential friendly buyers as a proactive measure to head off any attempt to mess with the board, sources familiar with the situation said.  A partner at a private equity firm told The Post that he’d been contacted about a Macy’s sale by a real estate investor — while other industry sources close to the situation say they, too, have had similar discussions.

As the Post further added, "the catalyst is Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value, the activist New York hedge fund. Smith is said to be fed up with Macy’s poor performance since he invested in it in July 2015. Macy’s shares are down nearly 60 percent since then. Smith is angling for seats on Macy’s board, according to several sources, who describe the situation as a looming proxy battle in advance of Macy’s annual meeting, which will likely take place in late April or May."

Then, moments ago, the WSJ"s Dana Mattioli, who has an infamous "deep throat" source on Goldman"s M&A team, confirmed that indeed Hudson"s Bay is preparing to acquire Macy"s, completing a trifecta of US retailers, including Lord and Taylor and Saks, however she cautions that the talks are in the early stages and may not lead to a deal, especially since "complicating a takeover, Macy’s is saddled with about $7.5 billion in debt."

Some more details from the WSJ:

Hudson’s Bay is an acquisition-hungry owner of marquee names in retail including Lord & Taylor department stores and Saks Fifth Avenue. While its market value is dwarfed by that of Macy’s—$1.8 billion compared with $9.8 billion as of Friday morning—Hudson’s Bay could raise equity and debt against its real estate portfolio, which could be worth $14 billion, one of the people said. It could also bring in a partner.

Macy’s has struggled in recent years amid increasing competition from upstarts and as shopping habits change and consumers buy more over the internet. Its stock has fallen more than 50% from the highest level it reached in 2015. In January, Macy’s said it would slash more than 10,000 jobs and detailed plans to close dozens of stores after another weak holiday-sales season. It’s facing mounting investor pressure to turn around its performance and reverse the stock drop. Starboard Value LP took a stake and a board seat and called on Macy’s to hive off its valuable real estate, which the activist investor says is worth more than $20 billion.

It is unclear if Trump would have any particular objection to having America"s northern neighbor own three of the most valuable and well-known retail brands in the US.

The Closings Continue: Retail Shutdown As Sales Go Online “200 Stores, 10,000+ Layoffs”

By Melissa Dykes

Holiday sales for many traditional stores were pretty abysmal this year … Amazon far and away captured the majority of online sales.

Stores like Macy’s, on the other hand, actually saw a sales decrease during one of the most crucial shopping times of the year.

Now The New York Times reports the store chain will be closing 100 stores and cutting over 10,000 jobs.

The company, which now has 730 stores, announced in August that it would close 100 of them. On Wednesday, it identified 68 stores to be closed.

…

Some employees may be offered positions at nearby stores, but Macy’s estimated that 3,900 workers would be affected by the closings. It also said it planned to restructure parts of its business, leading to a reduction of an additional 6,200 jobs. Over all, the job cuts represent about 7 percent of its work force.

Meanwhile, Sears Holdings Co. also announced this week it will close 78 Kmart Stores and another 26 Sears locations this spring.

The company’s statement read in part:

Many of these stores have struggled with their financial performance for years and we have kept them open to maintain local jobs and in the hopes that they would turn around. But in order to meet our objective of returning to profitability, we have to make tough decisions and will continue to do so, which will give our better performing stores a chance at success.

They admitted it: the stores were kept open mainly just to maintain local jobs.

That’s probably true of many major employers the nation over. As automation continues, jobs will continue to be lost. It’s a well-known fact that the majority of low-paying jobs that employ the most adult workers in this country such as cashiers and waiters/waitresses will inevitably be replaced.

The only question is what does the system plan to do with tens of millions of unemployed workers?

This article was written by Melissa Dykes and originally published at The Daily Sheeple.