How holiday shopping went in Memphis
As many were comatose on couches across the Memphis area on Thanksgiving, some began a long night of holiday shopping that extended into Black Friday.
As The Commercial Appeal reported earlier this week, many big box stores and shopping malls in Memphis were open on the night of Turkey Day.
Estimates still penned Black Friday to be busier, despite warnings of rain in the Memphis area. A handful of local businesses and organizations are running events during the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, too.
Here’s how a variety of Memphians approached this year’s Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping, bonding with family in checkout lines and escaping to bargain-hunting nirvana.
Poplar shoppers prepare for doorbuster deals
Both the Target and Best Buy at the Ridgeway Trace shopping mall, off Poplar Avenue, had dozens of shoppers waiting in line around 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving.
Some, usually those near the front of the line, were sitting in portable chairs and wrapped snug in blankets. Others stood, browsing phones or scanning fliers on doorbuster deals passed around by store employees.
Shyann and Raechel Shipley, a mother and daughter shopping pair, were sitting near the front of the Target line a little before 4 p.m. and said they first arrived in line around noon. Among the items on their list was a television, Beats by Dre headphones, a soundbar and an Instant Pot.
They said they were out there partly because the stores were run-
ning some of their best deals that day, but Shyann Shipley did say that being open on Thanksgiving can be “unfair” to employees.
Raechel Shipley, a nurse, said she understands odd holiday hours. She made sure she was off on Black Friday, though.
“I’m an instant gratification person,” she said. “There’s some things you know you want to get and don’t mind [buying online], but some things you actually want to see before you buy it.”
Families were camped out at Best Buy before its doors opened, too. Tina, Ryan and Ragan Young all said they needed new televisions, and a sale Best Buy was running on Smart TVs fit the bill.
Customers began filing in both stores once they opened at 5 p.m. Target’s line outside dissipated into the store about five minutes afterward. Best Buy’s line remained well out the door at 5:30 p.m., as the store let people enter in waves before stopping traffic for a few minutes.
Veterans and newbies converge at Cordova Kohl’s
Hunter Ann Frederick has shopped with her husband on the five-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend for the past five years — that’s since they’ve been married.
“It’s the experience, it’s more fun this way,” she said, standing beside part of her holiday haul outside the Kohl’s in Cordova, the second stop in a Thanksgiving shopping spree.
Many people shopping in the Memphis area during Thanksgiving were veterans of the craft.
Not so for Sheryl Ragland, who was waiting in the checkout line at the Kohl’s. It was her first time participating in the Thanksgiving shopping rush.
“We just thought this would be a new tradition, to do something new,” she said. “We did the Turkey Trot this morning, and today we’ve done this.”
Ragland said her mission on the shopping trip was to help out her daughter, Allison, who is in college.
“I thought this would help her free up her mind, to study for exams and not worry about shopping,” she said.
Tanger Outlets sees Thanksgiving night traffic
Cars inched their way through Airways Boulevard around 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving to make their way into the Tanger Outlets outdoor shopping mall in Southaven, Mississippi, grabbing any parking spot they could find.
The mall has run “Moonlight Madness,” when it opens Thanksgiving evening and remains open until Friday night, ever since it opened in 2015, said Lexi Harris, the mall’s general manager. Most stores participated in the event, and for good reason.
“The reason why we are open all night throughout the night is due to customer demand,” she said. “They’re lining up before the doors even open up at 6 [p.m.].”
While Thanksgiving night is busy for Girlie Girl Originals, a clothing store in the mall, it’s “nothing like Black Friday will be,” said Sheri Wilkins, store manager. She said she hoped Thanksgiving “would remain a family holiday” for most, while Black Friday draws in most of the shopping activity.
“I think a lot of people just like the idea of Black Friday shopping,” she said of how Black Friday stacks up to online shopping. “I think they like tangible [products] to touch. They like to see it and feel it.”
Local businesses follow own Black Friday traditions
While large retailers get most of the holiday shopping headlines, two local businesses in Memphis seemed to manage just fine on Black Friday.
Shangri-La Records in Memphis celebrated the Black Friday edition of Record Store Day by opening at 9 a.m. that day.
That earlier open apparently wasn’t early enough, as people started lining up outside the store around 6 a.m., according to John Miller, one of the store’s owners. On a day where national chains are pulling out all the stops, Shangri-La’s “loyal customer base” and first-timers strolling in keep business humming, he said.
“We had a good line wrapped down and around [outside],” Miller said. “The first couple of hours are always a little bit of a melee.”
Exclusive vinyl releases and oddball items available for Record Store Day tend to draw people in on Black Friday, he said.
For shopper Max Quinlan, he would’ve been at Shangri-La even if Black Friday specials weren’t occurring. An artist who played at Bar DKDC on Thanksgiving recommended the store to him.
“I’d be here anyway, but I was reminded of [Black Friday] when I pulled up,” said Quinlan, who is originally from Memphis but lives in Chattanooga.
Memphis Made Brewing, a brewery in the Cooper-Young neighborhood, opened up early on Black Friday with free doughnuts from Bartlett’s The Donut Box and prizes.
Vanessa Flohr, the brewery’s taproom manager, said she didn’t expect any patrons to be waiting for the taproom to open, but there they were.
“When I opened up that door, I saw a line, and I was like, ‘What?’ ” she said. “I got really excited about that, because we’re not normally opening this early.”
Flohr said she got the inspiration for opening early from a smaller brewery in the northern U.S., which managed to draw in more people each year as word spread of the event.
Tim Miller, a bar patron who was visiting Memphis from Cincinnati, said while the brewery wasn’t packed, the event will probably “engender some good with the people.”
Flohr said Memphis Made wants to continue the event for the foreseeable future — a new business tradition on a day steeped in it.
Max Garland covers FedEx, logistics and health care for The Commercial Appeal. Reach him at max.garland @commecialappeal.com or 901-529-2651 and on Twitter @MaxGarlandTypes.