Black Friday isn’t quite what it used to be as shoppers got a head start on their shopping and hit the stores to grab deals on Thanksgiving Day instead. The line extended well past Best Buy and the neighboring store, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and around the corner.
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“People tend to shop wherever they want to”, said Best Buy general manager Jason Strawn.
It may be Thanksgiving Thursday, but Black Friday fever has already arrived all over the Central Valley. Shoppers still spend three times as much on Black Friday as they do on Thanksgiving; however, Thanksgiving spending has risen 600 percent since 2011, while Black Friday spending has decreased by 20 percent. “I think it’s the holiday, I don’t think they should do it on this day”. The world’s largest retailer is also trying to make stores more welcoming this season by bringing back holiday tunes to its airwaves and adding in-store Santas, festive touches it hasn’t offered consistently over the years. Some customers couldn’t handle it. Their empty chairs sat in line for them.
Hundreds of people lined up at Best Buy, with scores of others in line at other stores around the mall area.
The National Retail Federation expects about 135.8 million people to shop over the holiday weekend, compared with 133.7 million previous year.
Last year about $3 million was spent on Thanksgiving and financial analysts estimate it’ll be even more this year. She started standing in line at about 1:30 p.m.
One person in line said to him, it was totally worth missing Thanksgiving and waiting in line. “And it got cold”, said Rory Mont of Hayward. Checkstands got busy early Thanksgiving morning at the Clovis KMart.
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Black Friday can be mayhem. She said she bought two 43-inch TVs for $169 from a Target store in Brentwood earlier this week. Copeland said that she was happy just to be out wandering the aisles and getting in the holiday spirit, but said she was nostalgic for previous Black Friday events when she was shopping with friends in the wee hours of the morning. The fever peaked at 5 p.m.at Best Buy.
