While most folks enjoyed an indoor turkey dinner with stuffing
and all the works Thursday, Patrick Rodriguez and his girlfriend
Leah Esparza had their Thanksgiving meal outdoors while standing in
front of Gilroy’s Best Buy.
While most folks enjoyed an indoor turkey dinner with stuffing and all the works Thursday, Patrick Rodriguez and his girlfriend Leah Esparza had their Thanksgiving meal outdoors while standing in front of Gilroy’s Best Buy.
By the following morning, the couple had plenty of deals to be thankful for – including an LED television, laptops and an $80 Palm Pre phone.
“We call ourselves the VIPs,” Esparza said with a laugh, noting that the Best Buy campo-ut has become a three-year tradition.
Tens of thousands of people showed up to Gilroy’s highway commercial areas early Friday to check out early morning holiday sales at places like Best Buy and Wal-Mart and the Midnight Madness event at Gilroy Premium Outlets.
And while a few people said this year’s crowds may have been slightly smaller than last year’s, most stores had no shortage of customers storming their doors.
“We thought we’d be crazy and work off our turkey dinner,” said San Jose resident Shannon Shaffer as she stood in line at the Banana Republic outlet in northeast Gilroy.
Hundreds of people at a time waited in lines for a long as 45 minutes at a time at Banana Republic to take advantage of the store’s half-off sale. Some folks even showed up about 9:15 p.m. Thursday – almost three hours before the store opened its doors – to be the first ones inside. Store manager Emily Alnas anticipated that 10,000 people would come through the outlet’s doors by the end of the day.
“I’m kind of overwhelmed,” said Alex Faillers, a Banana Republic employee who noted that the line for the cash register looped around the entire store.
Hundreds of people also lined up to buy purses at Coach, where shoppers could get 50 percent off clearance items, and coupons allowed them to get an additional 20 percent off those sales.
Despite the throng of customers who showed up to the event, Coach outlet assistant manager Cesar Baro said it was far more orderly than in years past.
The first year that Coach participated in the sale, people were pressed up against the glass and the store’s staff had to call police because customers started to get violent, Baro said.
“After that, we had a lot of changes, and we’ve pretty much got it dialed in now,” he said.
Jeannie Omel, general manager of Gilroy Premium Outlets, said the outlet mall has put up a lot of signs and increased security and parking patrols to help ensure a smoother process these days.
Although she said it was hard to know whether there were more or fewer attendees than in years past, she was still amazed.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” she exclaimed at one point while driving an outlet golf cart and seeing massive lines stretching from the Banana Republic and J. Crew outlets.
Some of the discounts being offered at this year’s Midnight Madness sales were larger than in years past, Omel said, perhaps a sign of the economic times.
While many shoppers said they came to Black Friday sales for the sheer thrill of shopping and getting amazing bargains, a few said the economy also was an incentive.
“It’s difficult right now,” said Best Buy shopper Randall Jones of Santa Cruz.
Jones, who was among the shoppers who literally camped out next to the store, said he probably saved about $1,000 on all the merchandise that he purchased by obtaining special coupons.
Others wondered if the economy may have contributed to slightly smaller turnouts.
Gregg Teal, assistant manager at Hugo Boss outlet, said the crowds seemed a bit slimmer this year compared to last year and people were buying smaller-ticket items, although he was satisfied with the overall response.
“You can kind of like smell the cautiousness in the air,” he said. “It’s like the wallet is open, but it’s a little squeaky.”
Hollister-based Leal Vineyards, which celebrated the opening of a new wine shop at Gilroy Premium Outlets during the Midnight Madness sale, only had a few folks come though its doors, but that likely had more to do with the fact that folks were standing in line for bargains elsewhere during the evening, staff members said.
Still, store manager Owie Popescu and events manager Andrew Amon expressed enthusiasm about the opening of the new outlet, which will feature wine tasting and wines from Leal and eventually from other California wineries.
In contrast to the hubbub at eastern Gilroy retail centers, the city’s downtown was largely subdued. Esmeralda Wolf of OD’s Kitchen said the restaurant had a higher than usual turnout, and it felt more like a weekend crowd. But several other restaurants and businesses shut their doors, and even many that stayed open had an underwhelming turnout.
Ro Gaeta, owner of the Bike Center on Monterey Street, said the turnout was a bit better than usual, but the real big day of the holiday season will be Dec. 4 during the Downtown Holiday Parade.
The National Retail Federation predicted that up to 134 million shoppers would hit the stores during Black Friday this year, up from about 128 million people who did so last year.
Despite the financial hardships facing many Americans, it is ultimately in the best interest of the economy for people to shop, Teal said.
“It’s a Catch 22 – nobody can afford to shop, but you can’t afford not to,” Teal said. “It’s amazing how much one person can affect the economy.”
