136 million expected for US Black Friday sales

WASHINGTON — Nearly 136 million shoppers are expected to flock to US sales over the Black Friday weekend, both in stores and online, according to the National Retail Federation. Black Friday is the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season, “Reports of long lines outside stores on Thanksgiving and Black Friday were matched by reports of record-breaking online sales,” said Matthew Shay, president and chief executive of NFR, in a statement. On Black Friday, the day after the Thanksgiving holiday, retailers trumpet special deals that kick off the year-end holiday shopping season. Deals often start early, on Thanksgiving, as retailers scramble to take advantage of the shopping frenzy. The origins of the name are unclear, with some saying it refers to the intense jams of shoppers. But the more common explanation is that it points to profits being “in the black” as retailers bank on year-end sales for a large part of their annual profits. The NRF estimates that 135.8 million people will be shopping over the four-day holiday weekend, a modest 1.6 percent increase from last year. The industry group will publish the results of the weekend on Sunday. With the boom of online shopping, bricks-and-mortar stores are also beefing up their offers on websites and mobile devices. Digital research firm comScore predicts online sales in the November-December period will increase 14 percent this year to $70 billion. Another firm, Forrester Research, estimates an 11 percent rise to $95 billion. Black Friday is followed by Cyber Monday, when back-to-work consumers continue their shopping online. According to the NRF, 184 million people intend to shop online that day. Retail is part of the consumer spending that drives about 70 percent of US economic activity, and so is seen as an indicator of the strength of consumer demand. But the importance of Black Friday has faded somewhat in recent years as shopping trends change and online sales gain. “Over the past several years, retailers have begun their holiday price promotions progressively sooner, not waiting for the traditional Black Friday day to begin offering price discounts,” said Chris Christopher, director of consumer economics at IHS Global Insight. Many retailers open their doors on Thanksgiving Day, also known as Gray Thursday, cannibalizing Black Friday sales, he noted. This year, Black Friday comes in the context of weak retail revenues blamed in part on relatively warm weather that has discouraged cold-weather purchases. On Wall Street, most major retailers’ shares closed lower, including Wal-Mart, Amazon, Macy’s and The Gap. Target was an exception. The chain climbed 0.2 percent after reporting a strong start to its Black Friday weekend, especially a 35 percent jump in online orders for in-store pickup on Thanksgiving. But certain retailers made a point of bucking the Black Friday hoopla. Outdoor gear company REI proclaimed “We’re not here” on its website homepage, saying it had closed all 143 stores for the day. “We hope you’ll join us outside today,” it said, instead promoting the Twitter hashtag #OptOutside. Black Friday, meanwhile, isn’t always what people expect. In Colorado, for instance, marijuana stores got into the act. In Arizona, families skipped the spending frenzy to go hiking. And in Chicago, shoppers snapped photos of demonstrators protesting the police shooting of a black teenager. Overall, there seemed to be smaller crowds throughout stores and malls across the country. Here’s how the day played out: Hundreds of protesters blocked entrances to stores in Chicago’s high-end shopping district to draw attention to the police shooting of a black teenager. The demonstration came after the release of a video this week showing the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald last year. The video touched off largely peaceful protests. On Friday, some of the demonstrators in Chicago linked arms to form human chains in front of main entrances to stores. mStore employees directed shoppers to exit from side doors. When one person tried to get through the front door of Saks Fifth Avenue, protesters screamed at him, shouting, “Shut it down! Shut it down.” Entrances were also blocked at the Disney Store, the Apple Store, Nike, Tiffany & Co., and Neiman Marcus. Many shoppers seemed to take the disturbance in stride, and some even snapped photos of the crowd. Business was brisk but not overwhelming at a Macy’s in Kansas City as rain that started Thursday morning continued falling. There didn’t appear to be any lines more than a few customers deep. Gerri Spencer and her daughter left home at 4 a.m. and made their way to a Macy’s store several hours later. Spencer said the crowds seemed sparser than in the past when Black Friday meant “getting out at the crack of dawn” to get the best deals. Some Black Friday shoppers seemed to miss the holiday crowds. At a Kmart in Denver, Susan Montoya had nearly the entire store to herself. She half-heartedly flipped through a rack of girls’ holiday party dresses and looked down the store’s empty aisles. “There’s no one out here! No challenge!” she said. Lynette Norcup also is nostalgic for Black Fridays of the past. Sitting in the warmth of her daughter’s SUV waiting for Wal-Mart to open, the resident of Pleasanton, California said she thinks the excitement has fizzled with stores opening on Thanksgiving. Norcup misses the challenge of strategizing to score deals. At Catalina State Park just north in Arizona, dozens of families and dogs hiked through the saguaro cactus-covered mountains. Many said they didn’t plan on shopping on Black Friday anyway. Krista Wells, of Tucson, said she wanted her daughters to understand that the holidays are about spending time with family, not shopping. m”This is about the season of bringing together and reflecting upon family and getting into the Christmas holiday. I don’t think there’s a retail holiday,” she said. Jennifer Rojas was hiking down a steep hill with her mother. She said she tries to hike every year after Thanksgiving and likes to avoid the shopping crowds. “I’d rather appreciate nature, rather than being at a mall or watching TV,” Rojas said. For the first time, analysts had predicted more than half of online traffic to retailer sites would come from smartphones than desktops during the four-day Black Friday holiday shopping weekend. On Friday, there was evidence that shoppers were vacillating between both stores and online. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s chief merchandising officer Steve Bratspies told the Associated Press that the chain saw more shoppers buying both on its website and in its stores than the same time a year ago. Target’s CEO Brian Cornell said that online sales on Thanksgiving were strong, outpacing the performance on the holiday a year ago. That’s making it Target’s biggest day online for sales yet, driven largely by electronics. He also was pleased with store traffic. And J.C. Penney’s CEO Marvin Ellison said that the chain worked hard to make its app more user friendly, and as a result, its online sales. “We saw customers going back and forth, researching online and then go to the stores,” he said. Meanwhile, Chip Gentry in Atlanta headed out to stores instead of purchasing items online. He walked out of a Best Buy with an Xbox One and extra controller, saving about $150 in total. “I’m looking for the deals online and going out to stores to get them,” he said. — Agencies