Retailers traditionally bank on Black Friday to earn profits for their annual bottom line, but it\u2019s likely Cyber Monday is a bigger deal these days, according to a Chapman University business professor.<\/p>\n
Raymond Sfeir, vice provost for academic administration and director of the university\u2019s business and economics school, told City News Service that Orange County retailers may be looking at a more tepid year in 2025 with so much economic turbulence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings are going up and down and everyone has a different opinion of what\u2019s going on,\u201d Sfeir said. \u201cYou look at one thing it tells you something, but look at something else and it tells you exactly the opposite. It\u2019s very unusual this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, like always, employment \u201cis a very important factor in what consumers spend,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they don\u2019t have a job they won\u2019t spend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unemployment nationally ticked up 1% in July compared with July of last year, he said. In September, it was .08% \u201cso things were starting to go down a little bit,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Then came the furloughs and the federal government shutdown. Employees laid off earlier this year were on the payroll through September, he noted.<\/p>\n
The employment picture is even more bleak in California and Orange County.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe increase in employment is lower than the national levels for most of California,\u201d Sfeir said. \u201cAnd Orange County is worse than California, and expect that to continue next year. Consumer sentiment has been coming down.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it was at 51% positive in November, compared with 71.8% in November of last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is huge,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople are not very optimistic about the economy, partly because of tariffs and their impact on prices, particularly food prices. I don\u2019t think we have seen the full impact of the data. This is going to continue into next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many retailers were able to curtail price hikes because they boosted inventory in advance of the tariffs, but when that inventory is gone the prices will go up, Sfeir said.<\/p>\n
Credit card debt is on the rise as well, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s getting a little bit worse compared with before,\u201d he said. \u201cThose in the middle and below are really struggling. The wealth has increased tremendously in the last year and that is increasing consumption by \u2026 those who own expensive homes and stocks. Having much more equity means they consume more, but unfortunately the rest of the public is struggling because the majority of their income is spent on food, so they have to cut down on furniture, clothing, general merchandise and going out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sfeir added that \u201ceven fast food places are not doing well. They\u2019re trying to entice (customers) to come back with special deals because even they are struggling, so there is this bifurcation in terms of expenditures between the rich and the poor. That\u2019s why we think GDP will crease 1.8% this year compared with 2.8% (in 2024)\u2026 Next year, expect it to be around 2%.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inflation is likely to keep rising, which will make for a \u201cvery difficult decision from the federal reserve to decrease interest rates,\u201d Sfeir said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think President (Donald) Trump putting pressure on the Fed Reserve and doing what he wants will make inflation worse and he and the GOP will regret it next year if inflation keeps going up. People are going to vote the way the economy is going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sfeir also said many large corporations are downsizing as artificial intelligence is implemented into business models. The stock market has seen record highs, but mostly because of the AI companies, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI call it a bubble with the AI companies \u2014 it\u2019s making some people very rich,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if you excise those huge companies, the stock market has not gone as high as it looks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Retail sales, including luxuries and food services, increased by 4% in the first eight months of the year compared with 2024, the professor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat looks very good, but I don\u2019t think the last four months are going to look as good,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think the increase during the holidays will be as good as last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s increase was about 3.9% over 2023, but this year could be between 3% to 3.5%, Sfeir said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are going to look for bargains,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I think there will be a pull back, but it\u2019s not bad. I just don\u2019t think it will be as good as last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sfeir advised consumers to not blink and wait out retailers through the holiday season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they want to move their inventories companies will have no choice \u2014 they will have to have some bargains,\u201d Sfeir said.<\/p>\n
He expects e-commerce to continue to rise.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year the growth was 7.9%,\u201d he said. \u201cWe expected it to be at least this much this year. Shopping online is going to continue to grow \u2026 More and more people are ordering things online. This is going to continue the rest of this year and next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for the more traditional consumer, the big shopping centers such as South Coast Plaza, Fashion Island and Irvine Spectrum will have a variety of bargains and attractions to woo foot traffic.<\/p>\n
Fashion Island will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and will feature the last of its new Merry Market pop-up experience. The pop-up shop features curated selections from retailers and exclusive items, including locally inspired gifts elected by fashion expert Sara Santos.<\/p>\n
Irvine Spectrum will feature live performances from the Jessica Louise Duo and the GB Jazz Trio. There will also be holiday DJ sets, live ice carving art and other attractions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retailers traditionally bank on Black Friday to earn profits for their annual bottom line, but it\u2019s likely Cyber…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,42554,383,42555,1040,2839,42556,11515,42557],"class_list":{"0":"post-72715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-dips","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-expect","14":"tag-holiday","15":"tag-retailers","16":"tag-sales","17":"tag-shopping","18":"tag-slower"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}