Stores focus on savvier Black Friday shoppers

But for many shoppers, Friday was just as much about the people – the people one goes shopping with, and the people one watches along the way.

“Last night the crowd was significantly larger and the morning was a little bit slower than we hoped”, said Hammons, who added that online shopping also contributed to thinner crowds.

For some shoppers, Black Friday began before Friday with a Thanksgiving rush the night before. In a few short years, it became tradition.

Chris Sutton works at BestBuy and says his store is seeing about the same number of people as a year ago. “I’ve seen promotions as early as Halloween”.

Do you like the idea of good deals but not the idea of standing outside the mall in a three-point stance waiting for the doors to open for pre-dawn Black Friday savings? You can find similar sites that allow for comparison-shopping or setting alerts with various retailers when the price of an item is at or below your desired target.

“It used to be very busy but for the past two years the mornings are not very insane”, said Gina Reynolds, a 39-year old housewife, shopping at a Macy’s M.N store in the Water Tower Place Mall in Chicago.

“I´ve been here on other Black Fridays and it was bad, but I guess this year because of the hours it´s not bad”. This year, there were only seven people in that line.

Spending during the overall season – November and December – is still expected to grow 3.6 percent to $655.8 billion, the NRF estimates.

“I do most everything online now”, Tate said. “Mobile was driving a lot of that”. Thanksgiving Day sales conducted online totaled more than $1.9 billion, according to Adobe Digital Insights.

Adobe says it based the report on aggregated and anonymous data from 22 billion visits to USA retail websites, using predictive modeling to forecast the remainder of the day.

The company forecasts that Black Friday online sales will hit $3.05 billion.

Its research found 27 percent of British adults intend to make a Black Friday-related purchase over the weekend and on average expect to spend 203 pounds, with 77 percent of the survey’s respondents planning online purchases, against only 17 percent setting their sights on in-store deals. “She bought it for me”, Julianne O’Neal said.

These drops are partly due to a decrease in store hours, she said.

Thanksgiving was seemingly already out of sight and out of mind for most shoppers. The retailer was offering a 50-inch Hisense 4K TV for 249.99 USA dollars. But Maria says it was tradition that kept them home together. Meanwhile, customers may want to come out and shop.

At the same time, some stores believe it’s not worth opening on Thanksgiving since the sales are spread out.

Under the shadow of darkness, anxious shoppers wearing heavy coats, gloves and hats clenched coffee cups as they waited patiently for the stores to open.

JCPenney employees help customers as the store opens for early Black Friday shoppers at the Laguna Hills Mall in Laguna Hills, Calif., Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016.

Beaverton resident Maitri Desai was surprised by the big crowds.

When asked if she knew what items she was going to buy, Silva replied, “No!”

At many malls, more consumers turned up as the day progressed.

7News cameras captured a line out the door and wrapped around the parking lot at the BrandSmart in Palmetto Bay, Thursday. But once the gift cards were gone, so was the crowd. At Macy’s in NY on Thursday night, she said she will go shopping Friday but her enthusiasm has waned.

Schoenbaum, who was out visiting stores in Glendale, California, said customer traffic in-store remained subdued. “Shopping centers across the country have seen that whittled down a bit”. “We kind of wanted to come early, get the good deals early in the morning”, she said, “and we didn’t want to come yesterday because we still have a very traditional Thanksgiving”.