Why Is It Called Black Friday in the United States?

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The holiday shopping season is about to be in full swing upon the arrival of Black Friday today, with big sales ahead of Christmas marking the busiest shopping time of the year.  The day's nickname has stuck, marking a shift from one holiday to the next.

Hoping to entice equivocating consumers, retailers already have spent weeks bombarding customers with ads and early offers. Still, whether visiting stores or clicking on countless emails promising huge savings, tens of millions of U.S. shoppers are expected to spend money on Black Friday itself this year.

Industry forecasts estimate that 183.4 million people will shop in U.S. stores and online between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, according to the National Retail Federation and consumer research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics. Of that number, 131.7 million are expected to shop on Black Friday.

What's your plan?

Drastically Rethink Your Global Business Strategy If ...

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Now (10/29/24), as former President Donald Trump campaigns on a pledge to hit all goods coming into the country with a 10%-20% tariff, or border tax, which would rise to 60% for goods from China, companies that import from China are having to drastically rethink their strategy.

America, once a global champion of free trade, is about to be taken off its game should Trump be re-elected.  His tariff claims are rejected by most traditional economists, who say the policy would do little to expand employment in the US, while raising costs for everyday Americans and slowing growth around the world.

Happy 4th of July from the Global Small Business Blog

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"America is another name for opportunity.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

America: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave

©2022 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you." – Amy Tan

America Was Built on Courage

©2017 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"America was not built on fear.  America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." -- Harry S. Truman

Walmart and JD.com Work Together to Leverage Their Supply Chains

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Walmart, America's big box store where each week, nearly 260 million customers and members visit their 11,527 stores under 63 banners in 28 countries and e-commerce websites in 11 countries, and JD.com, China’s largest e-commerce company by revenue, announced that they have formed a strategic alliance to better serve consumers across China through a powerful combination of e-commerce and retail.

For Walmart, the alliance greatly expands its opportunity in China e-commerce and provides its stores and Sam’s Clubs with potential traffic from JD.com’s significant base of online customers and vast same-day delivery network to serve its customers. JD.com will leverage Yihaodian’s strong brand and business in eastern and southern China and in key product categories such as high-quality grocery and household goods, both of which complement its own geographical and product strengths. In addition, JD.com’s customers will gain access to a wide range of new and imported items from Walmart and Sam’s Club.

Read more:  Walmart and JD.com Announce Strategic Alliance to Serve Consumers Across China

America Is Built on Courage

©2016 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"America was not built on fear.  America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." -- Harry S. Truman

Is Tipping Obligatory in America?

Below is an article by Max Fisher for The Atlantic which covers in part, as he says, the surprising frankness in discussing the warts of American history and society.

The United States is the second greatest tourist draw in the world, with 60-million-plus visitors in 2010 alone (France, number one, attracted almost 80 million). Flipping through a few of the many English-language tourist guides provides a fascinating, if non-scientific and narrow, window into how people from the outside world perceive America, Americans, and the surprises and pitfalls of spending time here. 

The comments are telling and really crack me up.

Read the entire article:  Welcome America, Please Be On Time:  What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

America's Trade Agreements

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A new web site, TradeAgreements.gov, has been launched to provide the public with the latest information on America's trade agreements.

The site will be updated frequently with news about existing agreements, as well as pending free trade agreements with Peru, Columbia, Panama and South Korea.

Your job is to figure out how to leverage these trade agreements that claim to open up foreign markets for U.S. exporters.

A Quest for the Global Best: America

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Globalization has been a boon for some U.S. service companies. Last year, a surplus of $58 billion in services was outsourced overseas. Here is a selection of recent data on cross-border trade from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Read the article here: America, At Your Service.