Shoppers Appreciate Earlier Black Friday Hours

Craft-selling site Etsy is working with Postmates for a holiday season pilot that will let some shoppers in New York City have items delivered to their door within hours for a flat fee of $20. She half-heartedly flipped through a rack of girls’ holiday party dresses and looked down the store’s empty aisles. “We bought spoons, forks, we do not have any plates and we don’t have any clothes”, says Jennifer Green.

Video has emerged of bargain-crazed shoppers descending into scenes of scrambling brawls as America’s famed Black Friday sales kick off after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Shoppers had a bit of a buying appetizer on Thanksgiving, but the question remains how much they’ll feast on deals on the day after the holiday.

While many commentators have been proclaiming the death of brick-and-mortar stores, Charlie O’Shea, an analyst with Moody’s, said Black Friday highlights how important the in-store shopping experience still is for many shoppers.

Target said Friday that Thanksgiving Day was its biggest day of online sales to date, driven largely by electronics.

Loading his auto in the near-empty parking lot, Sandoval said he was in and out of the store in about 15 minutes. “The frenzy and traffic levels were subdued”, said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultancy.

Target Corp. has countered by providing free shipping and returns on its holiday orders, while Wal-Mart plans to offer more than four times as many discounts as past year on the Monday following the Thanksgiving weekend.

The drop in Thanksgiving Day visits may also reflect a “social backlash” against stores opening on that day, Kearns said.

Walmart.com sold out of a 10-foot Skywalker trampoline and a Nintendo 3DS in the first half-hour they went on sale online, he said.

The most popular items being wheeled out of the store included televisons and other household appliances.

The group, which has always been criticized for its estimates of total spending over the extended weekend because they’re based on shopper surveys and not actual sales data, said it will no longer track total spending for the weekend. Standing outside in the cold was, and still is, an unappealing proposition – but if you want those doorbuster deals, it’s your only option.

The Metropolitan Police advised Black Friday customers to use a different password for each online retailer they visit after a man was arrested on Thursday for trying to breach Tesco’s online system using usernames and passwords obtained from previous hacks.

“I have one hour to shop and then I have to get home and cook Thanksgiving dinner”, she said.

Many stores made their deals available online and in stores for the official start of the season.

But for many, shopping online was turning out to be a more comfortable alternative. But Deloitte’s Simpson said retailers need shoppers in the stores. You can also save $300 and get a $100 Target gift card if you buy a 48-inch Samsung 4K Ultra HDTV for $599.99.

But executives from top retailers including Wal-Mart, Target and J. C. Penney dismiss the chatter about the irrelevance of Black Friday, saying they have worked hard to blend their online operations with the physical stores. Stores are also contending with an increasing shift to researching and buying online.