For Mrs. Zuniga and so many others taking advantage of the expanded store hours on Thanksgiving that spilled into Black Friday, the biggest shopping event of the year has become less of a frantic sprint driven by the drum beat of opening times, and more like a relay race, with purchases delivered several times to the car still parked in the lot.
For others, it’s a shopping spree split between trips on both days.
While some malls across the country were busy during the traditional postholiday shopping on Friday, the crowds at others seemed sparse to some regular customers, who compared them to a regular weekend’s atmosphere. Perhaps the earlier Thanksgiving hours and the increase in online shopping — with so many e-tailers offering competitive deals — had lessened the desire to peruse racks of clothes in crowded stores.
Still, customers sensed there were deals to be had on both days, and parking lots at some malls were jammed again on Friday. At the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall in New Jersey, a few of the upscale stores like Louis Vuitton opened without the fanfare of special sales. That didn’t deter Ozzoi Altimi, 20, and his friend, Sam Fad, 23, who had waited for it to open a few minutes before 9 a.m. The two men, both local college students but originally from India, said they were on the hunt for shoes, each with a budget of $800 a pair.
“They don’t do a discount,” said Mr. Altimi. “But I hope so.”
Others braved the cold temperatures to try to snare a good discount. A mother-daughter team, with red hats adorned with jingling bells, arrived at the Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets before 5 a.m. on Friday. Ashley Hawkins, 25, got half-off a professional bag at Kate Spade, a sale she took note of on Facebook. “Using the social networking, the stores have definitely got out and reached out to shoppers,” she said.
On both Friday and Thursday, some customers complained about their fellow shoppers. Holly Schneider, another shopper at the Leesburg outlets, said prices were far better than consumer behavior. “People are rude, just really rude,” Mrs. Schneider said. “There’s no personal space. It’s like you’re not even there. They’re bumping into you, knocking you down. They don’t see you. They see where they’re going.”
There were scattered reports of disputes around the country, with shoppers elbowing one another for some deals in a few stores, and even violence. A young man in California was accused of stabbing another man in a mall, according to the City of Carlsbad Police Department. In Romeoville, Ill., a suspect in a theft was shot outside a Kohl’s department store after a struggle with the police, The Chicago Tribune reported.
The shopping season also was the occasion for protests by labor groups and some Walmart workers at stores across the country in an effort to rally support for higher wages, with some demonstrators conducting civil disobedience sit-ins in Chicago, Los Angeles, Alexandria, Va., and several other cities. Our Walmart, a union-backed group, said more than 110 people had been arrested at the demonstrations.
The company criticized the protests and sit-ins as a publicity stunt, mainly done by union officials and members, with only a small number of Walmart employees joining. Earlier in November, the general counsel’s office of the National Labor Relations Board accused Walmart of illegally disciplining or firing some employees, some of whom had participated in last year’s protests. The company has denied the allegations.
Inside major retail and big-box stores, electronics, frequently used as “doorbusters” on Black Friday, remained a popular staple. At a Best Buy in Falls Church, Va., a pallet of 72 boxes, six rows high, containing Toshiba laptop “essentials” bundles stood behind a customer service desk. Workers just peeled down the plastic wrapping and handed them to shoppers. Each one cost $350 after a discount of nearly $92. Manoj Verma, a diplomat from India, used his smartphone to check reports of a 40-inch Samsung television on sale for $397.
IPad Airs and several televisions sold out on Target.com by midmorning on Thursday. Walmart announced that the company had sold 1.4 million tablets on Thanksgiving Day. Walmart also said it had processed more than 10 million transactions at its registers from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday, including lower-tech items like nearly two million dolls.
Over all, online sales were up nearly 10 percent over last year by Black Friday night, according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark. While smartphones accounted for nearly 25 percent of all online traffic, they were used to make less than 8 percent of online sales. Online sales on Thanksgiving Day rose more sharply, up nearly 20 percent over last year.
Elizabeth A. Harris reported from New York. Reporting was contributed by Steven Greenhouse from New York; Rachel Abrams from New Jersey; Ken Maguire from Falls Church, Va.; Jada F. Smith from Hyattsville, Md.; Alan Blinder from Atlanta; Kimiya Shokoohi from Los Angeles; and Idalmya Carrera from Chicago.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 29, 2013
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a contributor. Her name is Idalmy Carrera, not Carrerra.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/business/young-bored-and-looking-for-a-deal.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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