Black Friday crowds thin in subdued start to holiday shopping

This year, the Black Friday sales come in the context of weak retail revenues blamed in part on relatively warm weather that has discouraged cold-weather purchases.

In true British style, small, polite queues formed outside Currys PC World at Great Northern Retail Park, Huddersfield, and outside Tesco Extra in Batley, which opened at 6am and 5am respectively.

“I started shopping this morning at 4 a.m. cause I went to Staples”, said Wallace.

For Pam Williams, the Black Friday shopping has lost a bit of its luster because there’s no rush of getting a sought-after item.

Digital retail strategy firm ChannelAdvisor reported online Thanksgiving sales “blew the doors off”, with a 58% increase year-over-year on sales via mobile devices. The group also expects sales in November and December of this year to be $630.5 billion, up 3.7 percent from the last two months of the year in 2014.

More than 135.7 million customers were planning to go shopping during the long holiday weekend according to figures released by the National Retail Federation.

Traffic through the lakes area was busy Friday with crowds reported in area stores and parking lots sporting many vehicles from Herberger’s to Big Lots in the Westgate Mall to numerous shops and big box stores in Baxter and Brainerd.

Despite the fun she was having shopping on Thanksgiving, Hormilla also added that if retailers stayed closed on the holiday she wouldn’t be upset.

The trio mapped out their early Friday morning plan of attack in advance using store ads.

Statistics show that Black Friday shoppers spend an average of $805 each, which is slightly up from a year ago. “You tend to buy fewer items online”, he said. The price of the televisions sold in Amazon also range between $200 and $2,000 depending on the brand, size, resolution and features.

Unfortunately, despite store associates indicating when he first got in line that there would be enough of the item for him to get one, Chelmowski wasn’t able to get the deal.

Analysts say as much as 20-percent of holiday shopping will be done over the Thanksgiving weekend.

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

Kmart will kick off Thursday by opening at 6 a.m. The chain will be followed at 3 p.m.by J.C. Penney, and then Toys R Us and Best Buy at 5 p.m. Starting at 6 p.m., holiday stalwarts Macy’s, Wal-Mart and Target will welcome shoppers. Jim Silver, editor-in-chief of TTPM, an online review site, said about 10 toys are already hard to find, including certain “Star Wars” toys.

With the major retailers such as Macy’s, Target and Walmart opening Thanksgiving, some shoppers enjoyed a jump start on their to-do lists for the holidays. Unemployment has settled into a healthy 5 per cent rate, but shoppers still grapple with stagnant wages that are not keeping pace with rising daily costs like rent.