Steady. That seemed to be the most common word used to describe traffic on that holiest of retail days, Black Friday. According to ShopperTrak, Black Friday sales increased 3.0% to $10.6 billion over last year, with steady growth from around the country. Regionally, the South led the gains with a 3.4% rise over 2007, closely followed by the Midwest, up 3.0%; the West, up 2.7%; and the Northeast, gaining 2.6%, ShopperTrak reported.
Many stores took the occasion to open doors early with early including up to midnight itself. Door buster deals brought crowds in, but consensus reports held consumers seeking out their deals and little else. Unfortunately for the sporting goods industry, those deals were more likely to be in electronics or toys.
“Most people are going to Best Buy and Toys R US first,” said one sales associate at Dicks Sporting Goods in Minneapolis, MN. The associate described traffic as “steady and constant, but never busy.” Although the parking lot was full throughout the day, consumers at the store seemed to be considering purchases rather than making them.
At the nearby Sports Authority, traffic was similarly steady, but otherwise unremarkable, while REI also saw steady flow with traffic more akin to the first snowfall than to the years largest retail day.
Though general reports out of the Bay Area California had traffic steady compared to last year, consumers that were out purchased the deals they were after.
One anchor store executive at San Bruno Towne Center in San Bruno, CA commented that though they offered less door buster promotions than last year, crowds were steady at opening. Indeed, according to the source, who wished to remain unnamed, this year was better for the store than last year as the slightly lessened promotional stance led to better profitability.
In the Southeast, two of the regions major metropolitan districts saw quite different trends. In Charlotte, NC, the malls were crowded, but no more than on a typically weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Approximately one in three consumers carried bags with them, consistent across the cities malls.
The busiest store was easily Journeys, which offered the least discounts with only 20% off on a handful of selected styles. Nonetheless, crowds spilled out of the store and into the mall proper.
Further south in Atlanta, GA, however, traffic seemed slow, especially for Black Friday. At the Northpoint Mall in Alpharetta, GA, stores seemed noticeably overstaffed for the level of consumer traffic.
At the nearby North Georgia Premium Outlets, traffic was similarly slow. A sales associate at Fossil said that last year there was a 5-mile line off GA 400 to get into the outlet mall at midnight. This year, he hadnt seen any traffic and very few lines at any of the stores.In general, most of the dressing rooms were a little messy and the stores looked scattered, but nothing out of control.
At the Under Armour outlet store, store manager, Joseph Edgil, noted “We are being affected by the economy, but were not hurting.” He noted that most of the malls customers come from Buckhead and therefore are upper-class, which doesnt seem to be as affected as the lower and middle-class. “Ill get customers who come in and drop $100, and customers wholl come in and drop $7,000 Weve seen a decrease in numbers, but not a decrease in spending.”
Further up the east coast at the Livingston Mall in Livingston, NJ, traffic was fairly healthy for many stores. Pacific Sunwear had overflowing crowds upon opening as a result of a door-buster special calling for 30% off the whole store from 5:00 until 1:00 p.m. “Business is up to last year. It's been very good. We had lines swinging around the store,” said a store associate who declined to be identified.
At Modell's Livingston location, traffic was light at the store opening time of 5:00 a.m., but picked up and had been steady throughout the morning.
“Business is ahead of year-ago levels,” said Kyle Wiklowski, store manager at the Modell's location. “We were helped by a renovation of the mall as well as a major renovation of the store.”
Journeys, which opened at 4:30 a.m., didn't have any door busters but was able to put out a healthy $1,000 in sales by 7:00 a.m. “It's been coming in spurts but traffic has been good,” said Deanna Riley, store manager. “People were saying nobody was going to shop because of the economy, but they're shopping.”
Zumiez didn't have any door busters but had several sales going on. This included $10 off T-shirts when buying three more than $14.99 tees. The store was also selling up to 50% off snow outwear, snowboards, boots and bindings. After a slow start, business had been pretty healthy during the morning. “It's been okay,” said Nike Blim, assistant store manager.
The strongest turnout witnessed by Sports Executive Weekly staff was at the Maine Mall in South Portland, ME, where overall traffic was very strong with few parking spaces available, plenty of illegally parked cars and a strong percentage of shoppers carrying bags. Journeys was again the busiest store at the mall here with shoppers three deep waiting to make purchases at the registers.
Though Black Friday marks only the beginning of the Holiday sales season, with this years the shortest possible it might be a better barometer for the season as a whole than in years past. The steady turnout likely did not fulfill any wildest dreams, but were certainly better than the dire predictions so easy to forecast in the continuing to struggle economy.
