Memorial Day Weekend Predicted to See Record High Number of Vacationers

National holidays, especially those that fall at the beginning or the end of a weekend, tend to lead to travel plans for a lot of Americans. The three- or four-day weekend is the perfect time for many vacationers to spend some time away from home with their family and friends. While holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's usually lead to a lot of travel plans, many people prefer the shorter weekend trips over Veteran's Day or President's Day. According to Hugo Martin's L.A. Times article, the upcoming Memorial Day weekend is expected to break records in terms of the number of vacationers. 

According to experts, this phenomenon could be due in large part to falling gas prices. As the cost of gasoline goes down, it becomes cheaper to travel, which is encouraging for people who want to go on vacation. It's expected that the prices will stay low at around $3 per gallon, which is the cheapest they've been over Memorial Day weekend since 2009. Partially due to the low gas prices, most of the vacationers are expected to be driving. In fact, statistics show that around 2.52 million will be driving to their destinations, a 2.9% increase from last year.

Similarly, there is expected to be a 3.4% increase in the total number of vacationers, up to 3.03 million Southern Californians, according to the Auto Club of Southern California. This will be the sixth consecutive year where the number of travelers increased, potentially a sign of a strengthening economy, in which consumers feel secure enough to spend money on travel. Some of the top destinations for travelers include San Francisco, San Diego, and Las Vegas, as well as famous landmarks like the Grand Canyon and some national parks.

The biggest increase of all, however, is among the number of Californians choosing airplanes as their mode of transportation. Over this Memorial Day weekend, over 300,000 Californians are expected to fly on commercial airlines, which is a 6.2% increase from last year's numbers. Even with all of the recent issues with airlines, the growing numbers could indicate that people are traveling further, which means that they are taking more time off of work than just the three-day weekend. That could point to growing comfort with the state of the economy or better financial management on the part of consumers looking to go on vacation. 

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Manufacturers Face Difficulty Predicting Popularity of New Toys

Over the years, there have been a variety of "must-have" toys that hit the shelves in the month or two leading up to Christmas. From Chatty Cathy in 1960 to Tickle Me Elmo in 1996 and everything in between, there have been so many toys that had booms in popularity around the holidays. Of course, because of the surges in popularity, those toys would often sell out quickly, and parents who wanted to find the toy for their child would have to pay much higher prices to scalpers. Some might ask themselves why the toy company didn't just manufacture more of them to begin with, but as Shan Li discusses in her L.A. Times article, the answer is not so simple.

First of all, toy manufacturers have no way of knowing which toys will be the most popular. Since only a couple of toys each year receive huge popularity, if they produced enough of every toy in their catalog to meet the demand that a must-have toy faces, then they would not make any money and would end up with warehouses full of less popular toys that won't sell. Still, some manufacturers take a chance and make an educated guess as to which toys will be most popular. Sometimes that pays off in boosted profits, and other times the company has massive losses.

There's no way to predict with 100% certainty what choices the average shopper will make during the holiday season. Many people believed that the popular item this season would be the Nintendo Wii U, a modern gaming system, when in reality, Nintendo's retro NES Classic Edition is the game console garnering the most demand. It seems that the best thing a company can do is keep their eyes open, and when they see that demand is spiking for a certain toy, try to ramp up production quickly enough to meet the demand. Some companies even keep extra factories "on retainer" during the holiday season to help make the ramping up process more efficient. Ramping up doesn't work out for every toy, however.

For any toy, it can be difficult to suddenly increase production enough to meet the spike in demand. It is most difficult when the toy involves any sort of electronic components, Manufacturing a gaming system is much more complex and time-consuming than manufacturing a stuffed animal, so if that "must-have" item of the year is an electronic device, it is more likely to stay at limited quantities, even if the manufacturers try to increase production. A few years ago, the popular toy around the holidays was the "Pillow Pet." However, because it didn't have any electronic components, the manufacturers were able to increase production to meet demand without having to raise prices. Even though the stores caught on early enough to try to ramp up production, the electronic components of this year's "Hatchimal" make it difficult to quickly produce.

While all of that is true, sometimes the decreased stock for certain products is done on purpose by stores and manufacturers alike. When shoppers are searching everywhere for the toy, other shoppers see that and get interested in the toy because of how interested the shoppers seem. High demand for a limited commodity begets even more demand by people wondering why others seem to want it so much. So, sometimes they will keep a supply of the product in storage, to limit the amount on the market and drive up demand and prices. Many companies even release the extra supply just before the holidays to capitalize on last-minute shoppers still looking for the right toy who are willing to pay anything they need to in order to get it.

They never know when interest will spike, so companies will often keep producing certain toys even after the popularity has waned. Like with the Bakugan, sometimes a toy will see a sudden surge in popularity for no apparent reason. Sometimes people will see it in stores and be interested; other times the toy will have appeared on a television show and people get nostalgic. There is no one factor that determines a product's popularity, even after it has already been popular, so in much the same way, shoppers can't expect manufacturers to know ahead of time which toys they should produce the most of. In general, it's a flip of the coin, and only the luckiest manufacturers succeed in the end.

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Some Stores Find Black Thursday Not As Profitable in the Long Run

Where several stores have decided to push up their Black Friday sales earlier on Thanksgiving day, many others are doing the opposite, closing their stores for the entire holiday in a show of support for those shoppers and employees who wish to spend time with their families. In her L.A. Times article, Samantha Masunaga investigates some of the deeper reasons behind the closure, as well as the financial implications for the businesses.

Over the past couple of years, Black Friday sales have been starting earlier and earlier. Historically, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and is a time when people can get good deals on new electronics like video game systems, televisions, and handheld devices. Until relatively recently, Black Friday started around midnight on Thursday night (technically Friday morning) and continued throughout the day. As companies began to realize that Black Friday sales brought in a lot of income, they started opening as early as 8 or 9 PM on Thanksgiving itself, enabling the sales to last longer and bring more customers into their stores.

This year, though, some companies are pushing it even earlier, some as early as 5 or 6 PM on Thanksgiving, which cuts family time pretty short for employees. In opposition to this, many slightly smaller companies are choosing to remain closed all of Thursday, with a belief that the few extra hours will not make much of a difference in the long run. Companies like Staples, Gamestop, and H&M have announced that its stores, headquarters, and distribution centers will be closed for the holiday. This decision, while upsetting to some potential shoppers, could potentially lead to greater loyalty among other customers who see that the companies care about enabling their employees to spend time with their families on the holiday.

Furthermore, many of the smaller retailers have come to a realization that opening their stores earlier for Black Friday doesn't have so much potential for profit. Analysts have shown that larger retailers, who can more afford to purchase big-ticket items in bulk for very reduced prices, are helped by a longer Black Friday, but that the smaller stores don't stand a chance trying to compete. So, this year the smaller retailers are concentrating on building goodwill and encouraging customers to shop online, then are opening up on Friday with their Black Friday sales. Statistics even show that those stores that opened early on Thanksgiving had a reduce in sales of about 11% over the rest of the weekend since those people who shopped on Thanksgiving were less likely to come back later.

Large companies may find out eventually that starting Black Friday on Thanksgiving does not positively affect them to the required extent to make a sizable profit. After all, when employees work on Black Friday, especially the portion of Black Friday that falls on Thanksgiving day, they get paid a higher hourly rate. At some point, the stores will reach a point at which sales are maximized while costs are minimized, at which point they will try to open their stores at that sweet spot every year. Because they continue to open ever earlier, it appears that they have not yet found that perfect time. Maybe they will eventually go back to being closed during the entire holiday, whether due to a lesser profit ratio or a surge in public opinion. It's hard to tell, so we will just have to wait and see.

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