New York: Black Friday sales increased 6.6 per cent to the largest amount ever as US consumers shrugged off 9 per cent unemployment and went shopping.
Consumers spent $11.4 billion (Dh41.8 billion), ShopperTrak said in a statement on Saturday. Foot traffic rose 5.1 per cent on Black Friday, according to the Chicago-based research firm.
"This is the largest year-over-year gain in ShopperTrak's National Retail Sales Estimate for Black Friday since the 8.3 per cent increase we saw between 2007 and 2006," ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin said in the statement. "Still, it's just one day. It remains to be seen whether consumers will sustain this behaviour through the holiday shopping season."
The brisk turnout came as retailers from Gap to Wal-Mart to Toys "R" Us opened their doors earlier than ever. The move to turn Black Friday into more than just one day also spurred online sales, which gained 39 per cent on Thanksgiving and 24 per cent on Black Friday, according to International Business Machines Corp's Coremetrics.
Many shoppers were rookies who had never before participated in the busiest shopping day of the year, dubbed Black Friday because many retailers are said to become profitable then. As many as 152 million people were expected to shop at stores and websites on Black Friday, up 10 per cent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation.
Young people
Macy's Chief Executive Officer Terry Lundgren said he was struck by how many people in their 20s descended on the chain's flagship store in Manhattan.
"It was almost a continuation of whatever social experience they were having hours before," he said.
Black Friday arrived with consumer sentiment at levels previously reached during recessions, as a record share of households said this is a bad time to spend, according to the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index. The measure has reached minus 50 or less in nine of the past 10 weeks, an unprecedented performance in its 26-year history.
Even with low confid-ence, shoppers paid more for goods and unleashed some pent-up demand, said Craig Johnson, president of consulting firm Customer Growth Partners, which is based in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Many shoppers are in the mood to buy for themselves. One is Kevin Fusting. While most of his gift budget will go to video games for his ten- and 12-year-old sons, Fusting, a 46-year-old oriental rug seller from Chevy Chase, Maryland, may buy himself a present this year: a Sony digital camera.
"I am not getting any younger," he said, explaining the temptation.
Stacey Carfi, a 32-year-old controller visiting Washington from Charleston, South Carolina, is treating herself, too. She paid full price for two pairs of pants — one for herself — and a key ring at Michael Kors and Lululemon Athletica Inc. She planned to buy herself shoes this holiday, too. "It is the season for buying, so why not get in on that?" Carfi said.
Sales at brick-and-mortar stores may rise 2.8 per cent to $465.6 billion this holiday season, slower than the 5.2 per cent gain last year, according to the Washington-based NRF. Online revenue may advance 15 per cent to $37.6 billion, according to ComScore Inc.
Not all shoppers planned to spend more this holiday season. Tanya Taylor, 39, bought clothes for herself at a San Diego Macy's, and planned to spend 50 per cent less this year because she's getting less work as a freelancer in the beauty industry.
Competitors
Chains such as Macy's, Target and Kohl's, which all opened at midnight, may have taken revenue from competitors like J.C. Penney Co. that didn't open until 4am, according Ken Perkins, president of Swampscott, Massachusetts-based Retail Metrics.
"It was a win for them," said Perkins, who visited stores in Boston. "The additional costs of staying open a few more hours will be more than offset by the traffic they brought in and probably taking some market share."
Macy's early start prompted many malls to open at midnight. That helped boost foot traffic at Walt Disney's namesake stores because Cincinnati-based Macy's is the anchor tenant in the malls that house most of its locations, said Jim Fielding, president of Disney Stores Worldwide. Sales at Disney Stores met expectations by rising high-single percentage points, Fielding said.
The extended hours drew Amanda Rottmueller, a 20-year-old nursing student, to Black Friday for the first time as she bought herself bras and pajamas that came with a free pair of slippers from Limited Brands' Victoria's Secret at the Tri-County Mall in Cincinnati. "The deal is just too good, and I can get something really nice I wouldn't be able to afford otherwise," she said.
Black Friday may illustrate a gap between what consumers tell pollsters and how they actually behave.
Looters and riots mar sales spree
New York: Pepper-sprayed customers, smash-and-grab looters and bloody scenes in the shopping aisles. How did Black Friday devolve into this?
As reports of shopping-related violence rolled in this week from Los Angeles to New York, experts say a volatile mix of desperate retailers and cutthroat marketing has hyped the traditional post-Thanksgiving sales to increasingly frenzied levels. With stores opening earlier, bargain-obsessed shoppers often are sleep-deprived and short-tempered. Arriving in darkness, they also find themselves vulnerable to savvy parking-lot muggers.
Add in the online-coupon phenomenon, which feeds the psychological hunger for finding impossible bargains, and you've got a recipe for trouble, said Theresa Williams, a marketing professor at Indiana University.
"These are people who should know better and have enough stuff already," Williams said. "What's going to be next year, everybody getting Tasered?"
Across the country on Thursday and Friday, there were signs that tensions had ratcheted up a notch or two, with violence resulting in several instances.
A woman turned herself in to police after allegedly pepper-spraying 20 other customers at a Los Angeles-area Walmart on Thursday in what investigators said was an attempt to get at a crate of Xbox video game consoles. gets for muggers, he said.
