From Black Friday to Cyber Monday, the National Retail Federation calculated that in-store and online sales were down 11 percent compared to last  year, according to consumer self-reporting. 

Those numbers made us ask whether special-savings days are losing their luster.

Jon Hurst is the president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. 

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Freelance writer Luke O’Neil presented a controversial perspective on all this in a Washington Post column over the weekend.