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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 |
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Local shoppers get up early for deals
Published November 29, 2009
SEGUIN — Just as they do every year, Laura Mondin and Rosie Calcote got to Walmart before 4 a.m. Friday to take advantage of a few of the “door busting” morning specials that mark the annual beginning of the holiday shopping season, but they weren’t early enough.
“We were looking for electronics, but we didn’t make it in time,” said Mondin, who like Calcote is a regular Walmart shopper. “It’s OK — I got a lot of Toys for Tots stuff, and some clothes for my son for Christmas,” she said.
After Walmart, Mondin and Calcote made the rounds, hitting several other stores in Seguin, before getting back to Walmart at about 7:30 a.m. after the crowds had dwindled a little.
“This is our second round,” she said. “I’m here now to look for Christmas decorations.”
For Calcote, the main focus of her holiday shopping will be decorating her new home. But she’s arrived at the point in life, she said, where her heavy-duty holiday shopping is a thing of the past.
“I have a 21-year-old,” Calcote said. “Those days are kind of over.”
Walmart Customer Service Manager Diana Friedrich arrived at the store a little after Mondin and Calcote, and the parking lot was nearly full, she said. “Everybody wanted to be here before
5 a.m. We had more people here early this morning than we had last year.”
The crowds also seemed better-behaved, Friedrich said.
“It was awesome,” she said, standing on the concourse ahead of the cash registers. “We had lines out to here and they stood in line for a while, but it went pretty fast. We got them out of here. It was much better than last year.”
This year, Walmarts across the country tried something a little different to diffuse a potential shopping frenzy that in some locations resulted in injuries and, at a New Jersey store a year ago, resulted in a trampling death when the doors opened.
Walmarts that aren’t usually open all night were on Friday, and inside the stores, the big-ticket sale items were arranged in what store manager Bucky Kalina said the company calls a “crowd-management plan.”
In Seguin’s case, that meant spreading the high-demand items around the store — and having a little help from Seguin police who voluntarily stood by in case needed, which, as it turned out, they weren’t.
“It was way smoother than it’s been in other years,” Kalina said. He pointed to a food aisle — one that wouldn’t be of any interest to a Christmas shopper — and explained how one end of it was closed off and the store’s entire stock of ultra-bargain laptops was placed there.
“We had a certain number of laptops,” Kalina said. “We let that many people into the aisle, and after that, all the laptops were spoken for. We started the sale at 5 a.m. and were out of laptops by 5:10. We were out of TVs by 5:30. There were queuing lines around the store, so it wasn’t like you had a mad mob for the big items. It was way smoother than last year.”
It was also a very good morning, Kalina said.
“It was awesome!” he exclaimed. “It’s been a good day, and we’re going to have a solid season.”
Around the country Friday appeared solid, too.
The Associated Press reported preliminary sales data released by the research firm ShopperTrak RCT Corp. suggests shoppers spent only slightly more in stores this Black Friday than they did last year.
Fresh signs of much stronger online sales during the traditional holiday shopping kickoff mean more might of shopped from home, though.
ShopperTrak reports shoppers spent $10.66 billion when they hit the malls Friday — just half a percent more than last year.
Web Marketing analyst Coremetrics says the average amount online shoppers spent on Back Friday rose 35 percent.
Still, more than a year after the economy’s collapse began rattling shoppers, industry observers said Friday’s shopping sprees offered a strong start to the holiday season as large crowds of shoppers snatched up early morning deals.
“I know what they want, but I’ve been looking for a deal to make sure I get a good price,” Jude Leeper, 49, of Hanover, Pa., said as she shopped for gifts for family members Friday at a Maryland mall. “I’m going to buy that gift that I know is going to get used, not stuffed in a closet.”
The traditional shopping spree — dubbed Black Friday because it often was the day when a surge of shoppers helped stores break into profitability for the full year — has marked the kickoff of holiday shopping for many consumers. But its importance has faded in recent years as merchants started hawking the deep sales and expanded hours usually reserved for that day well in advance.
Still, the day is often used as an important barometer of people’s willingness to spend during the holidays — vital weeks for merchants nationwide.
Executives at J.C. Penney Co. said Saturday that their day-after-Thanksgiving business in stores was “strong” nationwide as shoppers snatched up doorbusters.
However, officials at the department store chain, which did not provide specific data about this year’s business compared with last year, also cautioned that one weekend’s performance wasn’t enough to predict how the rest of the holiday season would fare.
Like Kalina, Cascades Gift Shop & Boutique owner Gail Roberson expects a very solid holiday season — especially compared to a year ago when shoppers shell-shocked in the wake of the economic collapse reined in spending on non-essentials.
“This year’s been good — a lot better than last year,” Roberson said. “I’m optimistic Christmas will be good this year as well.”
Roberson said regulars and new faces are showing her that the “shop local” message is getting out.
“I started wrapping gifts before Thanksgiving,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of people tell us that they’re shopping locally this year.”
Two of them were Linda and Jimmy Lenz of Seguin, who were in on Friday intending to buy a few small items.
That changed, though, when Linda Lenz saw the jewelry and the holiday decorations.
“I generally come here to buy clothes, but I always make sure I get here during Christmas,” she said, looking at a holiday tree covered with golden decorations.
She has a collection of the intricately designed ornaments that she adds to each year, she said.
“I come here and buy five or six of everything,” she said. “They’re all beautiful — but I have to try to stay away from that jewelry.”
The Associated Press also contributed to this report.
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