Perhaps we should blame FDR. Lobbying by retailers persuaded the US president to shift Thanksgiving forward a week in 1939 so that the new breed of US consumer could fit in another week of spending before Christmas.

He may well have been appalled if he’d lived to see the orgy of consumption that his decision has led to, if you look at the history of retail sales on “Black Friday” – the day after the Thanksgiving holiday – as an example. Right now, though, Black Friday looks like being the latest victim of the disruptive power of the internet.

Black Friday sales and those on its online adjunct Cyber Monday peaked in 2012 at around $US60 billion in the US. Last year, they were just $US51 billion despite the intervening plunge in the oil price, which should have given a boost to the US consumer who now accounts for nearly three quarters of American economic output.

One of the curious features of the recent third-quarter earnings season in the US was the apparent contradiction of rising consumer confidence but a string of profit warnings from retailers such as Nordstrom and Macy’s. In part, this reflects unseasonal warm weather. It is also a consequence of consumers taking a time to rebuild their balance sheets. The optimistic view is that they’ll be back once they’ve refilled their savings accounts.

Something more profound

Actually, something more profound may be underway. And it’s to do with the different aspirations of the so-called millennial generation. These under-35s were brought up in the consumerist high-water period between the 1980s and the financial crisis but are now looking for something more meaningful than a trip to the mall.

I would not overstate the case for the world’s consumers arriving on a new spiritual plain of simple living, however. I suspect the real story is the changing nature of shopping in the US.

There has been a shift in the way US consumer shop over a period of little more than a decade. In 2002, Walmart was responsible for 25 per cent of US retail sales growth. In the past three years, it contributed less than 10%. How has Amazon gone over the same period? From a standing start it now accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the rise in US retail sales.

Another way to view this trend is this. It took Walmart 13 years to grow its sales from $US10 billion to $US100 billion between 1987 and 2000. For Amazon, the same progress was achieved in just seven years between 2007 and 2014. The pace of change is accelerating.

There are three clear investment lessons from all this. First, some trends are unstoppable and long-lasting. You do not have to be in at the beginning to make money from good insights because they can play out over years. Since the end of 2008, Amazon’s shares have risen 15-fold.

Second, investment is just as much about knowing what not to invest in as what to buy and hold. Over the past year, while the Amazon share price has doubled, Walmart’s has fallen by a third. After all, if you are hooked into Amazon Prime’s free next day delivery why would you even think about battling the Black Friday crowds.

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