A Day of Snow, But Little Impact at Retail

With snow falling in Pennsylvania, I didn’t think about driving anywhere today. Snow is a mixed blessing for retail in the Christmas shopping season. Snow reminds shoppers to buy winter clothes, but it also makes them stay home. An unusually large snow storm on its way from the Rio Grande to New England has taken away a shopping day across the Mid-Atlantic states, but with two weekends remaining before Christmas, today was going to be a quiet day at retail anyway. The snow is light enough, probably 4 inches where I am, that it may be forgotten by tomorrow. In the last two days the same storm paralyzed Gulf Coast cities, but there too, only for a day. I’m told the snow there has melted away already. Heavier snow is expected across most of New England, but that is a region more accustomed to snow and it won’t represent the same level of inconvenience. Despite affecting half the country, this snowfall is only a minor delay for shoppers.