Poll: Did The Weekend's Storms Really Harm Shopping?

With soaring unemployment and consumer spending cut to the bone, the last thing retailers needed was a northeast snowstorm the weekend before Christmas. Or so goes the commonly heard narrative. It seems that almost every year reporters complain that bad weather hurts sales. I don't buy it. (No pun intended.) I concede that weather might delay shopping, but I don't believe it generally eliminates it altogether. But I could be wrong, so I wanted to put the question to the test. Vote after the jump!

First, let me stress: I don't mean to ask if your shopping was affected last weekend if your town was hit by the blizzard -- I'd be surprised if it wasn't. What I mean to ask is whether or not the total amount of shopping you planned to do for the holidays was affected. That's the hypothesis that I find unlikely. I just don't believe that, suddenly, you didn't get your family Christmas gifts because it snowed. You'd just go a few days later and shopped as planned. But let's find out.

I thought it would make sense to do two separate polls here, since not everyone was affected by the weekend's blizzards. That way everyone can vote. So let me first ask those who were affected that planned to shop:



And for those unaffected by the snow or already done shopping, think theoretically: