(Unity Marketing) - As retailers ramp up to Black Friday, the consulting firms and industry advisers are piling on with holiday retail forecasts. There are a dizzying array of forecasts to choose from. Take your pick, from good (4% from National Retail Federation) to better (4.5% by Deloitte) to best (6% by JLL Retail). Even more astounding is Deloitte’s prediction that shoppers will spend 51% of their budgets online, and only 42% in stores, with the higher-income shoppers ($100k+) expecting nearly 60% of their purchases will be made online. While I know a lot of effort goes into the making of these forecasts, I don’t think they are worth the cost of paper to print them on, and worse, I think they are a distraction from what retailers really need to focus on: their own performance during the holiday season. While such forecasts may make retailers feel good, they can distract retailers from what’s really important over the next two months, which is to attract shoppers and get them to buy.
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