Black September?

Beginning with September, changes in consumer spending have created the most difficult retail environment we have ever seen,” Hastings CEO John Marmaduke.

“Never in all my years as a bookseller have I seen a retail climate as poor as the one we are in,” Barnes and Noble, CEO John Riggio.

“Since mid-September, rapid, seismic changes in consumer behavior have created the most difficult climate we've ever seen," Best Buy Chief Executive Brad Anderson.

Hey, these are the winners in the Category Killers world: Best Buy vs. Circuit City:
Barnes and Noble vs. Borders.

I've been kind of commenting to my customers that I thought when the dust settled, that September 2008 would be recorded as a historic drop. I'll go ahead and call it. Black September.

***(POSTSCRIPT: Added Nov. 25, 08: Results for the quarter were clearly disappointing. We faced dramatic macroeconomic headwinds, and as a result we experienced our weakest comparable store sales in many years.” Books-a-Million, CEO Sandra Cochran.