Shoppers browse early for items in hopes of avoiding being
caught up in the whirl of the biggest shopping day of the year
Gilroy – Less than a week before the biggest shopping day of the year, Bay Area residents are browsing for clothes, electronics and other goods in Gilroy in hopes of avoiding Black Friday madness.
“I don’t like crowds and I avoid anything that says ‘mall,’ ” said Pat James, a Castroville resident who Tuesday afternoon was headed into Target. James said that in past years she has braved the crowds roving for sales as high as 50 and 60 percent on the day after Thanksgiving, but she had no plans to venture out this year.
Another Target customer had a more visceral reaction when asked about shopping on Friday.
“Oh hell no,” she said.
Avoiding Black Friday like the Black Plague is a lifestyle choice for many people, acknowledged Michele Rothstein, spokeswoman for the Gilroy Premium Outlets, but she said there’s a flip side: Countless “power shoppers” are happy to rise in the wee hours of the morning to nab the best deals.
“Bargain hunters are telling us this is what they want, and we’re giving it to them,” Rothstein said. “There’s the thrill of the hunt, being a pioneer among your social circles and being out there and getting the deal. People are very proud of it and we’re seeing things pop up on blogs like ‘I survived midnight madness.’ ”
For the second year in a row, midnight Thanksgiving Day will mark the witching hour for power shoppers, who have a chance to cash in on the best deals at more than half of the 141 stores in the outlets. Many retailers plan to offer deeper savings to those who shop between midnight and breakfast time Friday, and some plan to offer coffee and snacks to shoppers as they travel between the outlets’ four shopping areas.
The shopping centers off Pacheco Pass do not plan to open at midnight, but mega-chains like Best Buy and Target plan to open their doors before the sun rises Friday morning.
More stores are opening earlier because they want to grab customer dollars before the competition does. It’s great for shoppers, who have more options if they’re willing to sacrifice a night’s sleep. But it also creates challenges for retailers – many industry analysts question how profitable expanded hours are because stores must increase their investment in labor.
And many merchants who had a surge in bargain hunters in the wee hours later suffered a drop-off in business after the early bird specials ended and the crowds dissipated.
‘It makes for a flashy start. But in recent years, the overall weekend has been just ho-hum,” said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers. “I just don’t know whether this is the kind of strategy that makes for a good holiday season.”
The same issues worried officials last year at Chelsea Property Group, the parent company of Gilroy Premium Outlets. But those worries vanished, Rothstein said, after the success of midnight openings in Gilroy and six other test locations across the country last year.
“It went so well we’re opening 25 out of 36 centers across the country at midnight,” she said.
Gilroyans who may avoid the shopping centers this holiday weekend should be grateful that others don’t. One third of the city’s operating budget – or more than $11 million – comes from sales tax revenues each year, and more than a quarter of that money comes in between October and December, according to figures from the Gilroy Economic Development Corporation.
While the sales tax figures from the last quarter do not vastly outstrip earlier parts of the year, the holiday shopping season remains vital to the long-term health of Gilroy’s tax base, EDC Director Larry Cope explained.
“The reason they call it Black Friday is because that tends to be the first Friday that most businesses are in the black,” Cope said. “Before that point, most of the time they’re running in somewhat of a deficit until holiday sales kick in. If they don’t make it during these next two months, they may not make it the next year.”
Hopes are high for a successful shopping season at the outlets off Leavesley Road and the Pacheco Pass shopping centers, and downtown merchants even have a ray of hope for an improved year with the re-opening of Monterey Street.
A major road construction project wrapped up after a seven-month closure of two main street blocks. Workers are now laying the final bricks on expansive new sidewalks that run between Sixth and Fourth streets, and cars can once again park in front of storefronts.
“Business is already improving,” said Dawn Guillen, owner of Dilly Dally Alley, a children’s clothing store on Monterey Street. “Lots of foot traffic – it’s very heartening to see people coming in the front door, to see some life out there. It was so forlorn for a while.”
Empty storefronts will have to be filled with a better mix of restaurants and stores before Guillen bothers to open her business again on Black Friday.
“We have opened in the past,” she said, “but we had no customers at all. Now we go shopping instead.”
