Store discounts attract many Black Friday bargain hunters to
Garlic town
By Betsy Avelar Staff Writer
Gilroy – Donna Lewis and Karina Castro awoke long before the sun rose, looking for a deal that would soon vanish.
The pair were just two of thousands who ventured out on what has become known as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and one of the major shopping days heavily promoted by retailers and known for the infamous long lines outside and at the cash registers.
“I’ve heard some pretty bad stories about the day after Thanksgiving,” said Castro, who drove from Santa Cruz. “I heard people get uptight so I expected worse.” She pushed a bright orange cart from Target packed with toys for her children. The commute from Santa Cruz obliged her to wake at 3:45am, but the ads from newspapers and television encouraged her to come out to Gilroy.
Like Castro, Lewis an Alameda resident heard of the many stores in Gilroy and she too pushed a cart overflowing with toys.
“I’m not buying anything that’s not on sale if I’m going to get out this early,” Lewis said. Both shoppers took advantage of the toy sales.
More than 200 customers stood outside Targets doors to buy $98 Kodak digital cameras, toys for less than $15, and specials on portable DVD’s and LCD flatscreens.
Though some shoppers heard of the discounts, other traditional shoppers simply wanted to get the task completed to avoid last minute shopping.
“We weren’t even planning on coming, but if we can get shopping done early this year that would be nice,” said Robert Lira, 45, a Gilroy resident.
While some customers shopped calmly, others did so desperately. Regardless, store managers and sales representatives were out in force.
“Were just trying to keep our merchandise available to the guests, so they can find what they need and leave quickly,” said Darla Thompson, Target store manager.
At Best Buy, a line of customers wrapped around the building before the doors opened at 5am.
“I don’t know how those people dealt with (the cold),” said General Manager George Stokes, about those who waited outside the door. “The entire staff in the store is working today,” he added.
But before Best Buy and Target opened, the Gilroy Premium Outlets opened their doors at midnight and traffic was backed up on 10th Street and on U.S. 101 in both directions starting at 11pm Thursday.
One worker at Coach who was letting people in the doors in shifts, said the line stretched for hundreds of yards, half-way around the shopping center, in the middle of the night.
Sylvia Haughton of Daly City was there to save despite the hour. “Last week I saw a handbag for $300,” she said.
“We could save $100 today,” her husband Caxton Haughton said. “Or we could get out of here and save $300.”
Haughton said he and his wife gave up on Valley Fair mall in San Jose earlier in the day because of a major parking crunch.
The traditional shopping day is important for the city.
Shoppers contribute to one third of the city’s operating budget – or more than $11 million – from sales tax revenues each year. More than a quarter of that money comes 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.
While Black Friday officially starts the holiday shopping, generally it’s no longer the busiest day of the season – that honor now falls to the last Saturday before Christmas. Stores say Black Friday sets the tone for the overall season, however: What consumers see that day influences where they will shop for the rest of the season.
Last year, total Black Friday sales dipped 0.9 percent to $8 billion from the year before, dampened by deep discounting, according to Shopper Trak RCT Corp., which tracks sales at more than 45,000 mall-based retail outlets. For the Thanksgiving weekend, total sales rose just 0.4 percent to $16.8 billion. Even so, merchants ended up meeting their holiday sales projections, helped by a last-minute buying surge and post-Christmas shopping.
This year, analysts expect robust holiday sales gains for the retail industry, though the pace is expected to be slower than a year ago. The National Retail Federation projects a 5 percent gain in total holiday sales for the November-December period, less than the 6.1 percent during the same period a year ago.
Conventional wisdom has it that the more chaotic the environment, the more people will buy, but that was not the case with Santa Cruz resident Kristal Collins, 23.
“It’s too overwhelming, like to the point where I don’t want to buy anything. I’m not relaxed enough to buy anything,” she said while waiting in line with her friend at Best Buy. “I like to be where people can help me,”
Betsy Avelar attends Gavilan College and is an intern for the South Valley Newspapers. Reach her at (408) 847-7216 or ba*****@************ch.com.
