Despite a gloomy U.S. economy, and weather, there was no “bah humbug” in these Temple area shoppers out for the annual day after Thanksgiving shopping spree. Hundreds waited for hours, hovering at store doors, eagerly waiting for workers to open.
To get customers into the Christmas buying spirit, beginning at 7 a.m. Temple Mall handed out 150 goodie bags with gift certificates from everything to a year’s worth of free Dr Pepper to movie passes to jewelry.
“It’s all about the freebies, especially this year,” one shopper in the middle of the line said, regarding the nation’s lackluster economy.
Troy High School senior Dalai Salinas and four friends were first in a line of about 300 outside the mall’s main entrance. She said it took a little arm-twisting to get them to come along at 3 a.m. but the free goodies were too good to pass up.
On the other side of the mall, Rhonda Dunahoo had a 4 a.m. rendezvous with her daughter, Krystin, at the J.C. Penney sale. They bought a coat and other gifts, before raiding the nearby Wal-Mart where they grabbed a Samsung BluRay DVD player on sale for $100. The store kept the sale items stretch-wrapped and stacked head-high on a pallet until the stroke of five.
“And when they ripped the plastic off I bet they were gone in less than 60 seconds,” she said.
For about 20 years, this grandmother of two has spent the day after Thanksgiving racing from store to store. She compared this year to past ones.
“This morning it was crowded. There was people all over, but you could still get through,” Ms. Dunahoo said. “I’ve been here day after Thanksgiving when you could not move and be stuck with your basket for quite a while.”
Retailers call the day after Thanksgiving Black Friday because the sales often pull them out of the negative, or red ink, on balance sheets and into the black, or plus column.
But that black ink may be harder to reach than in the past. A company that follows nationwide retail sales said due to numerous factors retailers can’t control the Christmas shopping season would be slower than normal.
“Currently we’re anticipating the lowest retail sales and total U.S. traffic numbers we’ve seen since we started compiling this data in 2001, which will most likely leave retailers scrambling to entice consumers into their stores early and often during the holidays,” said Bill Martin, ShopperTrak co-founder.
And that’s apparently the strategy employed at the Temple Best Buy Store. Employee Chris Arning said when they opened at 5 a.m. a line of bargain hunters wrapped around the side of the building and stretched to the stereo installation bays. He said people were seeking “door buster” items such as savings on TVs, laptops and gaming systems, but there’s no single hot item like last year’s Nintendo Wii.
At the Best Buy, standing in line to purchase a Xbox 360 video game system at $199, Angela Rendon said she had scoured several other retailers, but no luck. They were either sold out, or too expensive. This was about her fourth stop.
Ms. Rendon said earlier that morning the Harker Heights Wal-Mart was “a mad house” with people “grabbing, grabbing, grabbing.”
Other shoppers reported Grinch-like behavior at several locations. Cutting in line and pushing and shoving erupted at the mall and some Wal-Marts. But nothing remotely resembled what The reported: A mob trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker in Long Island, N.Y., early Friday morning.
Ms. Dunahoo said the Christmas spirit here in Central Texas shone through.
“Everybody was pretty nice even though it was crowded. And people were helping each other,” Ms. Dunahoo said. “Everybody was nice helping each other find things.”
