Holiday shopping brings bargain hunters and retail outlets together to fight it out over the once mighty dollar. As always, there are winners and losers in this economic game. The winners from the business side are the retailers that met or exceeded their sales expectations. The winners from the consumers side are those of us who did not overspend, or break our holiday shopping budget. Of course, you must first need to know what your holiday shopping budget is in order to know if you have won that game.
The losers on the business side are the retailer who did not meet their sales expectations. Of this group, the big losers are the small, locally owned shops without any corporate backing. This group must find ways to pay for excess inventory, and extra hours worked by their employees. Unfortunately, this could mean borrowing money. Which of course leads to further reductions to the bottom line in the form of increased interest payments.
Another unfortunate occurrence is when these small retailers no longer can obtain a quick loan, or cannot receive more credit from their vendors. They may turn to business credit cards to bail them out. This is a huge gamble, as...