Black Friday
It was bitter cold at 5:45 am on the morning after Thanksgiving but there was barely a parking space to be found at Blue Star Mall in Watchung and the cars streaming in from
Route 22 looked like the 16W exit from the New Jersey Turnpike near gametime at a Giants’ football game. Early bird shoppers were already leaving Kohls with shopping carts full of shopping bags, while “latecomers” eagerly followed them to their parking spaces to retrieve those precious items that would allow them to carry more merchandise to the cash registers.
No matter what naysayers might tell you, the economy looks like it is more than healthy
if the early “Black Friday” traffic was indicative of a trend for the Christmas shopping season, which happily for retailers is two days longer than last year when Thanksgiving fell on November 27.
In Kohls, there were two long customer lines that snaked around the entire store and split off into the dozen or more cash registers in front of the store. Those lucky enough to have procured one of the shopping carts had them loaded to capacity while others struggled with armfuls of items. The main reason for all these bleary eyed consumers who had sacrificed sleep were many items discounted until twelve noon, called “Bargain Busters”,
a retail version of the early bird special.
This scene was far from unique. In fact there were stories from all over the country of
huge lines of customers that had braved all types of weather and crowds longer than election lines in Ohio to get that “must have” item.
Whatever happened to the online economy where there is free shipping and no waits?
A Kohl’s manager with the name Christine on her lapel said that she had been at the store since 3:30am but was not required to arrive until four. “I got here early because I had trouble sleeping anyway. This is the day we wait all year for in retail. We get by on fumes and a lot of coffee until Christmas.”
She is pretty accurate in her sentiment if you believe retail analysts who have written that about 50% of sales and 75% of profits are attained from the Christmas shopping season.
She described the atmosphere as very orderly as she bent over to pick up items that had been pushed to the floor by the long line at the checkout. “People seem to be pretty polite because they are finding what they need. We hope we stocked enough of what people wanted.”
One man named Tom was standing on the line with nothing but his walkie-talkie. He told the person on the other end that he was only fifteen customers away from being checked out and that they should start to bring their merchandise to him. But for every Tom there was a Sarah, who had far too many items for her arms to hold but was ecstatic that she had already finished 75% of her Christmas shopping.
Another woman, whose clothing identified her as being from Union, was a little surprised by the intensity of the early morning crowd. “I left my house at 5 am and 22 was already backed up because of the cars trying to get into the Best Buy parking lot.
“I never thought when I got here at 5:20 that I would have to battle anybody.”
Instead she became what she estimated to be the 200th person in a line to get into Kohls but she was leaving happy.
“They had everything I needed, but I still have several other stops to make.”
Route 22 looked like the 16W exit from the New Jersey Turnpike near gametime at a Giants’ football game. Early bird shoppers were already leaving Kohls with shopping carts full of shopping bags, while “latecomers” eagerly followed them to their parking spaces to retrieve those precious items that would allow them to carry more merchandise to the cash registers.
No matter what naysayers might tell you, the economy looks like it is more than healthy
if the early “Black Friday” traffic was indicative of a trend for the Christmas shopping season, which happily for retailers is two days longer than last year when Thanksgiving fell on November 27.
In Kohls, there were two long customer lines that snaked around the entire store and split off into the dozen or more cash registers in front of the store. Those lucky enough to have procured one of the shopping carts had them loaded to capacity while others struggled with armfuls of items. The main reason for all these bleary eyed consumers who had sacrificed sleep were many items discounted until twelve noon, called “Bargain Busters”,
a retail version of the early bird special.
This scene was far from unique. In fact there were stories from all over the country of
huge lines of customers that had braved all types of weather and crowds longer than election lines in Ohio to get that “must have” item.
Whatever happened to the online economy where there is free shipping and no waits?
A Kohl’s manager with the name Christine on her lapel said that she had been at the store since 3:30am but was not required to arrive until four. “I got here early because I had trouble sleeping anyway. This is the day we wait all year for in retail. We get by on fumes and a lot of coffee until Christmas.”
She is pretty accurate in her sentiment if you believe retail analysts who have written that about 50% of sales and 75% of profits are attained from the Christmas shopping season.
She described the atmosphere as very orderly as she bent over to pick up items that had been pushed to the floor by the long line at the checkout. “People seem to be pretty polite because they are finding what they need. We hope we stocked enough of what people wanted.”
One man named Tom was standing on the line with nothing but his walkie-talkie. He told the person on the other end that he was only fifteen customers away from being checked out and that they should start to bring their merchandise to him. But for every Tom there was a Sarah, who had far too many items for her arms to hold but was ecstatic that she had already finished 75% of her Christmas shopping.
Another woman, whose clothing identified her as being from Union, was a little surprised by the intensity of the early morning crowd. “I left my house at 5 am and 22 was already backed up because of the cars trying to get into the Best Buy parking lot.
“I never thought when I got here at 5:20 that I would have to battle anybody.”
Instead she became what she estimated to be the 200th person in a line to get into Kohls but she was leaving happy.
“They had everything I needed, but I still have several other stops to make.”
posted by David Lazarus at 6:04 PM
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