Black Friday is still a big deal
Shoppers continue to pack stores despite the ongoing growth of online sales
Whatwas true for Mark Twain is also true for Black Friday — the reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.
Yes, deep discounts for online shoppers spread far and wide across the internet have diluted the all- or-nothing door busters at brick-and-mortar stores the day after Thanksgiving. But the frenetic shopping day has not plummeted in popularity.
“Of course, I’m going to the
store on Black Friday,” said San Jose resident Donald Lewis, who plans to pick up a 55-inch Samsung smart TV from Best Buy. “The crowds are ridiculous, but it’s so worth it.”
In true holiday season fashion, parking lots will be jammed, shoppers will endure long lines for the cash register, and bargain hunters will battle over mounds of messy clothing racks.
The number of people who stayed away from the stores last year declined slightly (4.5 percent) from the year before, according to RetailNext. Online sales are growing, but Adobe Analytics found recently that more than 50 percent of people in an online survey still want to touch the products they buy, especially millennials.
Victoria Richards, 24, is one of the them. She was browsing Wednesday in the women’s clothing department at Target. She’d already found some good deals, but is still likely to go to a mall on Black Friday, she said.
“I just like cheap fast fashion,” she said, running her hand over a black peplum blouse with tiny flowers. “We’re going to see if we can get more deals.”
That means parking lots could still be a nightmare, because 47 percent of people who order online would prefer to pick up their purchases from the store than use 1- day shipping, Adobe Analytics found. Security is one of the reasons, with people worried about package theft.
On the bright side, someday the crowds may thin out as more and more retailers offer so- called “deal busters” like appliances online rather than requiring peo- ple to come to the store.
Some — including Home Depot and Lowe’s — have already launched those sales, pre-Thanksgiving Day. Whether they’ll offer better deals than those currently offered is a “guessing game,” said Sarah Hollenbeck at BlackFriday.com. However, the additional discounts are not likely to be that significant, she added.
Is it even worth waiting until Black Friday to shop?
A study last year by the nonprofit Checkbook.org concluded that many bigticket items at major retailers that are advertised as on sale are bogus discounts, with the same price called a sale price more than half the time. For example, an LG 55-inch 1080p 120Hz f lat- screen TV (model # 55LF6000) that Target listed as normally selling for $599.99 was “on sale” for 40 out of the 40 weeks it was available, ranging from $474.99 to $499.99.
And at some stores the fake sales never end: In other words, the “regular price” listed on all those price tags is seldom, if ever, actually the price customers pay. Experts say the only way to know whether you’re paying a fair price is to compare prices through sites like Google Shopping and PriceWatch.
Nonetheless, Black Friday may remain the busiest day of the long holiday weekend. A survey by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics found that of those planning to shop during the holiday weekend, 21 percent (34 million) plan to shop on Thanksgiving Day, but on Black Friday 71 percent (116 million) will hit the computer or the stores. Despite the sagging stock market, Adobe Analytics was predicting Wednesday that sales during the holiday shopping season that began Nov. 1 will rise 15 percent to more than $124 billion.
But it’s pretty clear that shoppers shouldn’t feel as if they’ve missed out if they decide to skip the Black Friday sales. They can wait another 48 hours for Cyber Monday. That’s when the big dough is expected to roll in: Cyber Monday is projected to bring in $7.8 billion; Black Friday, $5.9 billion; and Thanksgiving, $3.3 billion.
“It’s going to be a good year,” said Kirthi Kalyanam, director of Santa Clara University’s Retail Management Institute, “for both consumers and retailers.”