Sears to Macy’s lure wary shoppers with Black Friday deals

A CUSTOMER PERCHASES merchandise at a checkout counter at a Toys R Us Inc. store ahead of Black Friday in New York. U.S. retailers will kick off holiday shopping earlier than ever this year as stores prepare to sell some discounted items at a loss in a battle for consumers. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/PETER FOLEY
A CUSTOMER PERCHASES merchandise at a checkout counter at a Toys R Us Inc. store ahead of Black Friday in New York. U.S. retailers will kick off holiday shopping earlier than ever this year as stores prepare to sell some discounted items at a loss in a battle for consumers. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/PETER FOLEY

NEW YORK – When J.C. Penney Co.’s store in New York’s Herald Square opened at 8 p.m. yesterday, Paula Mason was the first shopper through the door.

Lured by the discounts and mindful that she didn’t get everything she wanted last year, the 50-year-old babysitter from Brooklyn quickly dropped about $200 on dolls, shoes and household goods for her four grandchildren and daughter-in-law.

“I saw the sales and decided to come out tonight,” said Mason, who planned to spend as much as $400 yesterday. “This year, I’ll spend more because there are such good deals, and last year I didn’t get everything I wanted.”

Mason was one of millions of Americans who interrupted their Thanksgiving celebrations yesterday to go shopping. Millions more will hit the malls today for the annual Black Friday sales event. Many chains opened earlier than ever this year to win market share in a holiday shopping season that researcher ShopperTrak predicts will be the weakest since 2009.

- Advertisement -

Faced with smaller crowds of less confident shoppers as well as six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas than last year, retailers are pouring on margin-eating discounts.

“Retailers are selling at a point of desperation,” said Robin Lewis, a retail consultant based in New York. “They are going to be gouging each other’s eyes out. There’s more discounting going on than Heinz has pickles.”

As many as 140 million people planned to shop in stores and online yesterday through Sunday, the National Retail Federation said, down from 147 million last year. Black Friday will be the biggest day of the weekend, with about 97 million shoppers, the group said. Sales figures for today will be released tomorrow by ShopperTrak and the next day by the NRF.

Beefed-up security

Stores and malls nationwide beefed up security, with some hiring off-duty cops to complement in-house guards. They also used live entertainment, portable bathrooms and ticketing and wristband systems to keep crowds orderly and avoid the death and injuries that have occurred in the past.

More than a dozen retailers opened earlier or for the first time on Thanksgiving Day. Among the first-timers were Macy’s Inc., Kohl’s Corp. and J.C. Penney, which is in the midst of turnaround efforts. About 33 million shoppers intended to shop on turkey day, said the NRF, a Washington-based trade group.

In Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine, however, so-called “blue laws” prohibit large supermarkets and department stores from opening on Thanksgiving.

Taubman Centers Inc. said the parking lots at its Northlake Mall in Charlotte, N.C., were 90 percent full by 11 p.m. yesterday, after opening at 8 p.m. The company said there was more traffic than last year, when the shopping center opened at midnight.

Teen shoppers

At first, most of the customers were families and couples, though teenagers began showing up as the night went on. Taubman said the strongest categories were intimate apparel, women’s designer handbags, unisex apparel, junior apparel, sporting goods and electronics.

The early openings riled opponents who started online “Save Thanksgiving” petitions to restore off days for store employees and keep families together on the holiday. OUR Walmart, an association of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees, said it would press its battle for better working conditions and higher pay in demonstrations today. The group promised acts of civil disobedience at 1,500 stores.

With 10 percent fewer shoppers expected to visit stores this holiday, sales are projected to advance 2.4 percent, the smallest increase since 2009, the year the recession ended, according to ShopperTrak.

Wobbly sentiment

Sales have been undermined by wobbly consumer sentiment in recent months. Confidence among U.S. consumers declined in November to a seven-month low, the Conference Board reported Nov. 26. Americans, whose spending makes up about 70 percent of the nation’s economy, grew more pessimistic about the labor-market outlook, the board said.

Shoppers will be buying “needs, not wants,” which will hurt the department stores and benefit the off-prices retailers, Lewis said.

The discounts threaten to squeeze retailers’ bottom lines.

“We expect this year’s Black Friday to have better deals than last year, good for consumers but tough on retailers,” Oliver Chen, a New York-based Citigroup analyst, wrote in a Nov. 26 note.

Best Buy Co. is offering “crazy prices” on Black Friday in addition to its price-matching, CEO Hubert Joly said in a phone interview last week. “We don’t want price to be an obstacle.”

Kindle Fire

He cited a Samsung 65-inch TV for $999.99, down from $1,499.99. An iPad for $299 and a Kindle Fire for $99 are each $100 cheaper than normal, he said.

The marketing hype aside, the depth of discounts was varying widely from one retailer to the next, according to GoBankingRates.com. While Target Corp. was offering a 50-inch Element LED TV off 62 percent at $299, Sears Holdings Corp. was giving 2 percent off a 55-inch Seiki at $850, it said.

The NRF has remained optimistic, last week reiterating that U.S. retail sales may advance 3.9 percent to $602.1 billion during the holiday season. That increase would be slightly higher than last year’s 3.5 percent gain. Online holiday sales will increase as much as 15 percent to $82 billion this year, the group said.

Sales in November and December account for 20 percent to 40 percent of U.S. retailers’ annual revenue and 20 percent of their profit, according to the NRF.

The term Black Friday is believed to derive from the myth that retailers didn’t become profitable until this day each year.

No posts to display