A lot of the big retail names, from brick and mortar chains like Walmart and Best Buy to online companies like Amazon, are offering Black Friday-like specials all weekend long online, starting on Thanksgiving and spanning into what has been traditionally known as “Cyber Monday”, or the Monday following Turkey Day.
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Bargain hunters found relatively little competition compared with previous years.
“We have spent over $10,000 in the past 2 days”, says Green.
Some people were out Friday morning for a second round of shopping, having already hit some stores Thursday.
Nationally, Black Friday sales have declined slightly every year since 2012, the New York Times reported, in spite of increases in overall retail spending.
With the major retailers such as Macy’s, Target and Walmart opening Thanksgiving, some shoppers enjoyed a jump start on their to-do lists for the holidays.
Suntrust Robinson Humphrey analysts were more blunt, calling Thursday a “bust”. “Members of our team who went to the malls first had no problem finding parking or navigating stores”.
Beginning at 5 Friday morning, the mall looked like a ghost town and it wasn’t until close to 10:00 that the crowds started picking up.
For many, the shopping is secondary. “We have done that in the past but not this year”. “If you came to Champs, you pretty much get a Heat ticket if you purchase at least $50 worth of merchandise”, said shopper George Shimabuk.
Amy Wilson has worked 17 consecutive Black Fridays at JC Penney and says sales in the store have been fantastic, even though reports claim more people than ever are doing holiday shopping on mobile devices.
Small businesses downtown see some rise in sales on the nation’s biggest shopping day, but that traffic often comes in the afternoon when people leave malls and big box retailers. Most of that uptick isn’t going toward buying gifts but into other categories such as furniture and entertainment, the survey found. Wal-Mart dipped 0.6 percent, while Amazon.com Inc was down 0.3 percent.
British retailers are anxious to avoid a repeat of last year’s trading pattern when the surge in lower-margin sales was followed by disappointing demand as shoppers held back in the hope of further discounts.
Traffic was better at some retailers. Medeira then said that another reason for making it a day early is that it can be exhausting for working parents and millennials to stay up past midnight to shop online, only for them to wake-up early the next day to get ready for work.
Many stores around the country were full on Thanksgiving evening.
Another fight circulating on social media shows an altercation between a group of men at a shopping centre in Florence, Kentucky.
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At the Northtown Mall, mall manager John Shasky said Thanksgiving sales are still evolving.
