Black Friday crowds thin after US stores open – Holiday shoppers get a head start on Thanksgiving

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PITTSBURGH/CHICAGO, Nov 27, (Agencies): Crowds were thin at US stores and shopping malls in the early hours of Friday, initial spot checks showed, as shoppers responded to early Black Friday discounts with a mix of enthusiasm and caution.

Many shoppers headed out to stores on Thanksgiving evening, a month before Christmas, reflecting the new normal in US holiday shopping, which was traditionally kicked off the next day, Black Friday.

In an effort to attract the most eager holiday shoppers and fend off competition from Amazon.com Inc, US retailers have increasingly extended their holiday deals by opening stores on the evening of Thanksgiving.

“It’s still early, and from what we are seeing so far the crowds are good but not great,” Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, said late on Thursday. The retail consultancy had 18 members studying customer traffic in different parts of the country.

Crowds

Milagros Munez, 39, a law clerk, was shopping for toys at the Target store in New York’s Harlem neighborhood. “We actually came early this morning to miss the crowds. Now that some stores are open all night, I feel like more people go in the evening.”

The Macy’s Inc store at Water Tower Place mall in Chicago saw thin crowds in the early hours of Friday after a fairly busy Thanksgiving evening, store associates said.

Nia Darrell, a 23-year-old student, was shopping for coats and handbags at the store with two friends.

“I shopped online yesterday and picked up most of what I wanted,” she said.” I’m out because Black Friday is more like a tradition but the discounts are similar even online this year.”

Shoppers in the United States spent more than $1 billion online, 22-percent more than last year, between midnight and 5 pm ET on Thursday, according to the Adobe Digital Index, which tracked 100 million visits to 4,500 US retail sites.

Many stores around the country were full on Thanksgiving evening. Local media reported brawling shoppers at a packed Kentucky mall on Thursday evening, forcing a police officer to intervene and break up the fight.

Early Black Friday discounts at stores and online included buy one get 50 percent off on the second “Star Wars” toys at Target Corp, $200 off quadcopter drones at Best Buy Co Inc, and a 50-inch Samsung smart TV for $499 at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

As much as 20 percent of holiday shopping is expected to be done over the Thanksgiving weekend this year, analysts said. The four-day shopping burst will help set the tone for the rest of the season, signaling to retailers whether they need to drop prices or change promotions.

The shopping season spanning November and December is crucial for many retailers because the two months can account for anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of their annual sales.

Shoppers are expected to be cautious with their spending again this year. The National Retail Federation is expecting holiday sales to rise 3.7 percent, slower than last year’s 4.1 percent growth rate, due to stagnant wages and sluggish job growth.

At around 6 am on Friday, several hundred cars were in the parking lot wrapping the Ross Park mall in Pittsburgh. There was a good crowd walking the mall although it was not overly crowded.

Jorgette Clark, 27, said her budget would probably be lower this year because her husband works in the energy industry.

“I feel like we scaled back this year. Our husbands work in the oil fields… It’s probably a smaller Christmas this year.”

Kick off

Black Friday used to kick off the holiday shopping season, but now Thanksgiving Day is the new tradition for some shoppers.

About an hour before the 6 pm opening at Macy’s in New York’s Herald Square, about 100 people lined up. An hour and a half before the Toys R Us in New York’s Times Square opened at 5 pm, about 40 people stood in line. And at the 24-hour WalMart store in Naperville, Illinois, the aisles were clogged with people and carts by 6 pm, when employees began pulling shrink wrap off palettes of merchandise to mark the official start of Black Friday deals.

Outside, the scene was much the same. With the parking lot filled to capacity, drivers circled slowly looking for spaces, causing a backup of traffic trying to pull into the lot. Some gave up and parked in the near-empty lot of a fitness center and a Starbucks across the street.

“It’s the worst wonderful time of the year!” an employee laughed as he collected shopping carts.

Shopper Julie Desireau snagged a $10 crockpot and the last $10 deep fryer and promptly hid them under a rack of women’s flannel pajamas. Then the 29-year-old from Chicago called her husband, who was in the toy department with their cart, and told him to come pick her up.

“There’s no way I’m going back there,” she said.

After opening earlier and earlier on the holiday, this year, most of the more than dozen major retailers like Macy’s, Target and Kohl’s opened around the same time they did last year — about 5 pm or 6 pm.

One big exception: J.C. Penney, which is opening two hours earlier at 3 pm on the holiday. Staples has reversed course and will close on the holiday. Sporting goods chain REI, which was always closed on Thanksgiving, is bowing out of Black Friday altogether and is asking employees and customers to spend time outdoors and not go shopping.

Still, stores aren’t waiting around to push discounts on holiday goods until the official weekend. Increasingly, they’ve been discounting holiday merchandise earlier in the month. In fact, according to the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, nearly 60 percent of holiday shoppers have already started holiday shopping as of Nov 10.

That should take a bite out of the sales this weekend, though Black Friday should still rank as either number one or two in sales for the year.

Nearly 100 million shoppers were expected to head to stores on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in the US.

Add that to the millions who shopped Thursday on Thanksgiving, a relatively new phenomenon in the US where the holiday has traditionally been reserved for family meals. In recent years, some major retailers have been opening their doors on the evening of Thanksgiving and staying open all night.

Overall, the National Retail Federation expected about 30 million to shop on Thanksgiving, compared with 99.7 million on Black Friday. The trade group estimates about 135.8 million people will be shopping during the four-day weekend, compared with 133.7 million last year. And it expects sales overall for November and December to rise 3.7 percent to $630.5 billion compared with the same period last year.

But people may not be in the mood to shop much this year. Unemployment has settled into a healthy 5 percent rate, but shoppers still grapple with stagnant wages that are not keeping pace with rising daily costs like rent. And years later, they still insist on the deep discounts they got used to retailers offering during the recession.

Here are the big themes emerging on Black Friday:

Hello, can you hear me?

For the first time, there’s expected to be more people visiting retailers’ web sites through their smartphones than on desktop computers or tablets during the first weekend of the holiday shopping season that begins on Thanksgiving Day.

Mobile traffic during the five-day start to what is typically the busiest shopping period of the year is expected to reach 56.9 percent of total traffic, up from 48.5 percent last year, according to IBM Watson

No one will start a fight over anything, really

Yet again, trend experts say there’s no single item that’s making shoppers run to stores. Perhaps that’s why Ron Waxman, 51, a sports agent from New York, was able to shop with ease on Black Friday morning and find a nearby parking spot at 2 am.

“It’s quiet very quiet,” he said. “This is dead for Black Friday.’

It’s cheap to get warm

Heavy sweaters and winter coats piled up at department stores and specialty chains heading into the Black Friday weekend.

Unseasonably warm weather and a shift in changing shopping habits toward experiences like spas have limited shoppers’ appetite for such clothing. So plenty of stores like Macy’s, Nordstrom and Dick’s Sporting Goods say they plan to further mark down excess goods.

Toys are getting pricey

Prices are climbing for toys as manufacturers pack lots of technology into them. Deborah Weinswig of the Fung Business Intelligence Center says in a recent report that prices of what the company considers the top 20 expected toys was nearly 36 percent higher than last year, with the average price of $64.99.

And there are plenty of toys that cost $100 or more, observed Toys R Us CEO Dave Brandon. He cited Fisher-Price’s Smart Bear, which has a suggested price of $99.99, as an example.

You can still order online and get it today

More retailers are taking on the challenge of same-day delivery. Amazon has been making an aggressive push to offer same-day delivery to people who’ve paid its $99 fee for Prime loyalty club membership. Start-up delivery service Deliv is working with Macy’s, Kohl’s, Express, Williams-Sonoma and other brick-and-mortar retailers to expand same-day delivery options.

Craft-selling site Etsy is working with Postmates for a holiday season pilot that will let some shoppers in New York City have items delivered to their door within hours for a flat fee of $20. Apple is also working with Postmates on same-day deliveries in New York and San Francisco.

And Uber in October launched UberRush service in New York, San Francisco and Chicago that lets small businesses offer same-day delivery.

Workers protest

Wal-Mart workers and their supporters plan to protest outside the home of the daughter of Sam Walton, the company’s late founder. The protest outside her New York City apartment will conclude 15 days of fasting, organizers say. The number of days reflects the call for pay of $15 an hour and full-time work.

Organizers say more than 1,400 people will participate in the action nationwide.

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