Black Friday back, not what it used to be

NEW YORK — On this year’s Black Friday, things almost seem normal.

Malls and stores report decent-sized crowds, if not the floods of people that used to fight over the latest toys and

electronics — online shopping is much too common for that

now, and discounts are both more subdued and spread out over the weeks leading up to Christmas, on both websites and in stores.

But out-of-stock items due to supply crunches, higher prices for gas and food, and labor

shortages that make it more difficult to respond to customers are also causing frustrations for shoppers.

The country’s largest mall, the Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minnesota, reported overall traffic numbers at its opening on Friday were up by more than double compared to a year ago.

“We had a fantastic start,” said Mall of America senior vice president Jill Renslow.

Like many retailers and restaurants, however, staffing issues affected the mall and it had to trim the hours it was open.

So far, Black Friday sales — including online — were up 12.1% by morning, according

to Mastercard Spendingpulse, which tracks spending across all types of spending including cash and credit cards. Steve

Sadove, senior adviser for

Mastercard called the start “impressive” but the sales were

still tracking below its 20% growth forecast for the day.

Overall holiday sales are expected to grow this year. For the November and December

period, the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, predicts that sales will increase between 8.5% and 10.5%. Holiday sales increased about 8%

in 2020 when shoppers, locked down during the early part of the pandemic, spent their

money on pajamas and home goods.

While Black Friday has a strong hold on Americans’ imaginations as a day of crazed shopping, it has lost stature over the last decade as stores opened on Thanksgiving and shopping shifted to Amazon and other online retailers. Stores diluted the day’s

importance further by advertising Black Friday sales on more and more days.

The pandemic led many retailers to close stores on Thanksgiving Day and push discounts on their websites,

starting as early as October. That’s continuing this year, although there are deals in stores as well.

At the Fashion Centre mall in the northern Virginia suburbs, window signs advertised 50% off boots at Aldo, 40% off full price items at J. Crew, and 30% off at Forever 21. But the sales floor looked

different from years past, when tall stacks of merchandise used to be on display.

Big retailers like Walmart aren’t blasting “door buster” deals in their ads, said Dealnews.com analyst Julie Ramhold. Meanwhile, smaller chains like Victoria’s Secret and Gap are having harder time managing supply issues. Victoria’s Secret said recently that 45% of its holiday merchandise is still stuck in transit.

Supply chain hold-ups are a major concern this year, and

both stores and shoppers are trying to find workarounds.

Some of the biggest U.S. retailers are rerouting goods to less congested ports, even chartering their own vessels.

Fears of not being able to get the items they want helped drive people back to physical stores.

Tim Clayburn was shopping at Fashion Centre in Pentagon City, Virginia on Friday morning because he wanted to

make sure he could get the gifts he wanted for his relatives.

“Everyone is so worried about not having things shipped to you on time,” he said. “I’d rather just get stuff in person so I don’t have to worry about the shipping.”

That didn’t work out for everyone, though. “The thing that I came in for is already

out of stock both in the store and online,” said Addi Vanderbeld while browsing Apple laptops at a Best Buy in

the Denver suburb of Lone Tree.