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A4 U.S. NEWS
Saturday 25 November 2017

Even in the Amazon era, Black Friday shows stores are alive

in-store-only deals drew to score doorbusters into Thanksgiving continued to
him out from behind the a whole month of deals. be one of its busiest shop-
computer. That has thinned out the ping days, with orders
“This is the first successful crowds. And brick-and- through its app up over 50
doorbuster that I’ve ever mortar stores face plenty of percent from a year ago.
been a part of,” Moore challenges. Overall, online sales on
said. “I’ve been in lines be- With the jobless rate at a Black Friday rose 18. 4 per-
fore, but never actually got 17-year-low of 4.1 percent cent to $640 million, from
the items that I was waiting and consumer confidence a year ago, as of Friday
for.” Annette Peluffo usu- stronger than a year ago, morning, says Adobe Ana-
ally avoids Black Friday and analysts project healthy lytics. Thanksgiving gener-
buys online. But a $250 gift sales increases for Novem- ated a total of $2.87 billion
card reward for buying an ber and December. The in online spending, up 18.3
iPhone 8 plus at a Target National Retail Federation percent from a year ago,
store in Miami was hard to trade group expects sales the data firm said.
resist. She plans to use the for that period to at least About 69 percent of Ameri-
Shoppers wait for Dillard’s to open at 8 a.m. for Black Friday money to buy toys for her match last year’s rise of cans, or 164 million people,
deals at Broadway Square Mall in Tyler, Texas, Friday, Nov. 24, nephews and nieces in 3.6 percent and estimates intend to shop at some
2017. the coming weeks. “I just online spending and other point during the five-day
(Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Telegraph/AP) came here for the iPhone. non-store sales will rise 11 to period from Thanksgiving
Continued from Front scored one of the about I am not going to any other 15 percent. to Cyber Monday, accord-
14 “doorbuster” deals on a store,” she said. But analysts at Bain say Am- ing to a survey released by
Victor Moore said he ar- 55-inch Toshiba smart TV for Still, Black Friday isn’t azon is expected to take the NRF. It expected Black
rived about two hours $280, a $220 savings. Moore what it used to be. It has half of the holiday season’s Friday to remain the busiest
ahead of Best Buy’s 8 a.m. said he’s done some online morphed from a single day sales growth. day, with about 115 million
opening in Nashville and shopping, but the allure of when people got up early Amazon said Friday that people planning to shop
then.
“The consumer still likes
to go to the stores,” said
Charles O’Shea, Moody’s
lead retail analyst. “I’ve
seen a lot of traffic. Yes.
There’s going to be a lot of
online shopping. But I think
the brick and mortar stores
have done a nice job so
far in attracting shoppers.”
That’s true of Karre Wag-
ner, a 20-year-old Univer-
sity of Minnesota student
from St. Paul, Minnesota,
who was shopping at Mall
of America in Bloomington,
Minnesota, with her boy-
friend. She bought a Blue-
Ray player at the mall’s
Best Buy store. She says
she started holiday shop-
ping on Black Friday, but
she likes to go to the mall
to shop.
“I like to see what I’m buy-
ing. I like to touch it, feel
it, know exactly what I’m
getting and part of it is
the experience,” she said.
“I mean, sitting online is
fine, but there’s just some-
thing about starting the
holiday season with Black
Friday.”q