In era of online retail, Black Friday still lures a crowd
It would have been easy to turn on their computers at home over plates of leftover turkey and take advantage of the Black Friday deals most retailers now offer online.
But across the country, thousands of shoppers woke up before dawn the day after Thanksgiving and brought their mobile devices with them to take part in this most famous ritual of American consumerism.
Shoppers lined up outside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., by 4 a.m., and the crowd had swelled to 3,000 people by the time doors opened at 5 a.m. In Ohio, a group of women was so determined, they booked a hotel room Thursday night to be closer to the stores. In New York City, one woman went straight from a dance club to a department store in the middle of the night.
Many shoppers said Black Friday shopping is as much about the spectacle as it is about doorbuster deals.
Kati Anderson said she stopped at Cumberland Mall in Atlanta Friday morning for discounted clothes as well as “the people watching.” Her friend, Katie Nasworthy, said she went to the mall instead of shopping online because she likes to see the Christmas decorations.
“It doesn’t really feel like Christmas until now,” said Kim Bryant, who lined up at 5:40 a.m. at a mall in suburban Denver with her daughter and her daughter’s friend, then sprinted inside when the doors opened at 6 a.m.
Brick-and-mortar stores have worked hard to prove they can counter the competition from online behemoth Amazon. From Macy’s to Target and Walmart, retailers are blending their online and store shopping experience with new tools like digital maps on smart phones and more options for shoppers to buy online and pick up at the stores.
The Kohl’s app lets customers take photos of products anywhere and find similar items at the department store. And customers, frustrated with long checkout lines, can check out at Walmart and other stores with a salesperson in store aisles.
Roy Haller’s son wanted a toy robot for his December birthday. Haller tried to buy it on Amazon, but it was sold out. Friday morning, he frantically searched the internet and found one single robot left, at a Walmart 40 kilometres from his home in Louisville. He bought it online and arrived an hour later Friday afternoon at a kiosk near the entrance of the store. Employees delivered his bag, he held it up and declared: “I got the last one in Louisville!”
The holiday shopping season presents a big test for a U.S. economy, whose overall growth so far this year has relied on a burst of consumer spending. Americans upped their spending during the first half of 2018 at the strongest pace in four years, yet retail sales gains have tapered off recently and the pace of homebuying has fallen outright. The sales totals over the next month will be a good indicator as to whether consumers simply paused to catch their breath or if they feel slightly less optimistic about the economy in 2019.
The National Retail Federation, the largest U.S. retail trade group, expects holiday retail sales in November and December — excluding automobiles, gasoline and restaurants — to rise as much as 4.8 per cent over 2017 for a total of US$720.89 billion. The sales growth marks a slowdown from last year’s 5.3 per cent, the largest gain since 2010. But the figure is healthy.
The retail economy is tilting steeply toward online shopping. Over the past 12 months, purchases at non-store retailers such as Amazon have jumped 12.1 per cent. Meanwhile, sales at traditional department stores have slumped 0.3 per cent. Adobe Analytics, which tracks online retail spending, reported Thursday that Thanksgiving should reach a record US$3.7 billion in online retail sales, up 29 per cent from the same year ago period.