LITTLE ROCK — At 10 p.m. Thanksgiving, when Toys R Us opened its doors, about 900 people who snaked through a North Little Rock shopping center burst into cheers and applause.
The first customers to enter the store had been waiting since 3 p.m., when rain was pouring and temperatures had begun to plummet toward freezing.
It was the eve of the first “official” shopping day for Christmas - commonly known as Black Friday.
Tanya and Andrew Bush of Cabot were first in line after Tanya had scouted out the store Wednesday. Family members delivered their Thanksgiving dinner so the Bushes could hold their place in line.
When the couple left the store at 10:40 p.m., they had everything they wanted.
Not everyone was so lucky. Netbooks that were selling for $79 - $100 cheaper than normal, sold out in less than 10 minutes.
Black Friday is traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year, according to ShopperTrak, a company that collects and analyzes mall traffic data, though it often lags in sales behind the Saturday preceding Christmas. The International Council of Shopping Centers said it expected 74 million people to visit stores the day after Thanksgiving.
Retail analysts are cautiously optimistic about this Christmas shopping season. Deloitte LLP, a consulting firm with operations around the world, has predicted November to January Christmas sales will increase 2 percent from a year ago. Last year, $834 billion worth of goods were sold during the Christmas shopping season, excluding automobiles and gasoline, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. That was a 1 percent increase from 2008, when sales declined sharply.
Friday morning at the Target in North Little Rock, competition to get into the store was fierce. Many were hoping to snag one of a limited number of 40-inch flat-screen televisions selling for $298.
Store employees patrolled the line trying to maintain order among the estimated 1,000 people there. Tension between shoppers who had waited in line for hours and some who appeared and started hovering near the doors minutes before 4 a.m. escalated into shoving and shouting as the doors opened.
North Little Rock police stepped in and asked questions after one woman said she was dragged down in the push toward the door.
“I thought people were going to start fighting up there,” said Richard Paganelli, who was at the front of the line.
Ken Perkins, who runs Retail Metrics Inc. of Swampscott, Mass., said this year’s Black Friday will be the best since 2007, noting, however, that the national recession that followed cut into sales the next two years.
He points to two consecutive monthly increases in the Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators and the rise in the stock markets since the end of August.
“I think it bodes well for a decent holiday season and a solid Black Friday,” he said.
Aaron Martin, a spokesman for ShopperTrak, said consumers are returning to stores, but are more cautious than they used to be. ShopperTrak data indicate that shoppers this year, on an average trip to the mall, visited about 3.4 stores. Before the recession they visited five stores per trip.
“It points to smarter shopper, someone who’s better planning trips. Window shopping is kind of a thing of the past right now,” he said.
And with more-cautious consumers, retailers have to be more careful as well, Martin said.
“Retailers know what their margins are, and they’ve adjusted accordingly,” he said.
But discounts of up to 40 and 50 percent on many items were enticing. Debra and B.J. Thrasher had only completed a fraction of their shopping plan for the evening when they stood in line at Target before the 4 a.m. opening. The couple planned to knock out all of their Christmas shopping in one marathon trip and had meticulously selected their deals online and mapped their route with advance visits to the stores.
“We had so much fun last year we had to do it again,” Debra Thrasher said.
The two planned to hit J.C. Penney, Sears, Kohl’s and Kmart before heading home to Ward.
Sean and Whitney Grigsby of Jacksonville seized on Black Friday as an opportunity to buy necessities for their new house. Their main goal for the night was a visit Sears for a $699 Kenmore refrigerator.
“We’re just starting our careers as a firefighter and a teacher, so we actually have some money this year to take advantage of some sales,” Sean Grigsby said.
Retailers are looking for ways to expand Black Friday, said Brian Sozzi, a retail analyst with Wall Street Strategies. He noted “Black Friday creep” with pre-Thanksgiving sales earlier in the month.
Sears opened its doors for part of the day Thursday to extend the Thanksgiving shopping weekend.
And retailers are also using their websites to expand shopping opportunities, offering them as a complement to the in-store experience as well as a possible alternative. Walmart.com offered maps of local stores to assist customers planning to head out on Friday, as well as online deals. Friday afternoon Wal-Mart released its “Cyber Week” specials available online beginning Sunday. Socalled Cyber Monday is the online continuation of Black Friday weekend shopping.
Target.com offered special electronics deals online on Thanksgiving Day, in addition to a two-day online sale Friday and today.
Camille Schuster contends that retailers have weakened the impact of Black Friday with online promotions. Schuster is a marketing professor at California State University at San Marcos who also runs a retail consulting firm, Global Collaborations Inc.
“Some of the retailers, it seems to me they’ve gone ahead and ruined the whole Black Friday thing,” she said.
Black Friday historically is the day that many retailers became profitable for the year, but Sherrie McAvoy, a partner in Deloitte’s retail practice, noted that retailer profitability has been “pretty good” in recent years. Yet Wal-Mart and Target were profitable through the first nine months of the year. Best Buy, which has not announced its third-quarter earnings, was profitable in the first half of the year.
But for a certain segment of consumers, the Black Friday experience is irreplaceable.
The Bushes stood out in line last year as well, when Tanya was eight months pregnant. This year, with their three boys at home with her mother, waiting in line was a welcome break.
“We actually do this every year as our date night,” Tanya said.
Information for this article was contributed by Steve Painter and Laurie Whalen of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/27/2010