What would compel good citizens to abandon their turkey dinners and football games to camp out in folding chairs along the sidewalks and parking lots of the local outlet mall? Yankee Candles.
According to some crack shopper-on-the-street -- er, sidewalk -- interviewing by the local NBC affiliate in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., folks started lining up mid-afternoon on Thursday to get a jump on the early-bird super sales at Carolina Premium Outlet mall in Smithfield, where most stores planned to open their doors as early as midnight. The Yankee Candle store outmaneuvered the competition by opening up at 9:30 p.m. Eighteen-inch candles could be had for 12 bucks! Why sit around yacking with relatives you might see once or twice a year when you could save $5 per peppermint-scented candle? Ok, I enjoy a festive candle as much as the next gal, but THIS WAS THANKSGIVING DAY!
I shouldn't be harsh on those whose Thanksgiving festivities included catching up on cousins' and uncles' latest accomplishments and escapades in the line outside a mall rather than in the living room. After all, one woman interviewed by the local news station explained her goal was to snag a couple of laptops for two kids in college -- something that with the steady increase in gas prices, groceries, and other daily life expenses, those getting by on a modest income may not be able to swing without sacrificing half a holiday to get a super discount. Anyone able to scoff at getting up in time for a 4 a.m. holiday kick-off sale should count their ability to blithely forgo doorbuster deals among their Thanksgiving blessings.
Black Friday -- a rather oddly macabre moniker for a supposedly festive event -- has come and gone, and if the scene at Southpoint mall in Durham, N.C., was indicative of the rest the nation, it passed with a bit of a fizzle, though not a flop. Going out with my mom- and sis-in-law, we didn't have to drive long through the full parking lot before finding an open space and didn't even have to play chicken with two or three other cars to see which of us could squeeze in first. Inside, there were lines at cash registers, but not more than a half-dozen deep at any one.
Mark spent part of Friday afternoon in the Crossroads shopping area in nearby Cary with his brother and his sister's boyfriend. They spent their time at Best Buy, where the TSA could learn a thing about efficiently moving a crowd through a line. Checkout was nearly instantaneous, despite a respectable mob. The parking lot was full too, but there was plenty of elbowroom at the back of the store, where shoppers tried to figure out how the esoteric specs of various big-screen, high-def TVs explained the rather wide range of prices for similarly sized models.
Forecasters have been predicting less than stellar retail sales this year, and early indications are they may be right. According to the Raleigh News & Observer's next-day article on the big post-Thanksgiving day of sales, a significant number of shoppers said they were tightening their Christmas budgets this year, mainly because of high gas prices.
Will that mean desperate deep discounts for lazy slackers like me who slept in till 9 a.m. on Black Friday and didn't hit the mall till after the latest early-bird specials ended at 1 p.m.? Stay tuned.
(Screen Grab: WNCN-TV, NBC 17, Raleigh-Durham, N.C.)
1 comment:
I often wonder if the Black Friday mayhem is actual, or if it's a self-feeding prophesy cycle. Everyone watches the crazy stories of those lined up at insane hours for for Yankee Candles, and think they must be out early to catch bargains as well. Question - are the early shoppers actually lining up for am bargains, or are they going just for bragging rights on the off-chance they'll be on TV?
This same psychology exists for the launch of new video games, and consoles, &c. I think it was started by Star Wars fans lining up for Episode I many moons before the movie was relased.
There are others, though who prefer to wait and go at normal hours and shop when it's comfortable for them, not the retailers. They ignore the hype, if you will, and just go whenever. It's not the end of the world if you don't get a Wii this year. You have lived this long without one, so this year is different how? . . .
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