By Nikki Baird, Managing Partner
December 1, 2009
Yes, it is 3:45AM. Even the street light is asleep, leaving my street in darkness. Orion wheels overhead, brilliant in the blackest night sky I have seen in a while. I live south of Denver, CO, in what is technically considered "high altitude," which means the stars always look brighter here. While it is beautiful, I wish I was not looking at it at this very moment.
My neighbor, Marisa, is a school teacher, with four kids ranging from high-schooler to toddler. She has invited me to go with her on her 4AM jaunt to hit the deals and steals on Black Friday. For some reason, that sounded like a good idea. Right now, coffee sounds like a great idea and I don't even really drink coffee. I meet Marisa, and her 17-year-old daughter Shelby, in front of their house. I think it's about 20 degrees outside. Shelby says that people were camping out at Best Buy starting at midnight.
4:00AM, Kohl's parking lot. We pull in just as Kohl's opens the doors. The parking lot isn't exactly full, but we do have to park two stores over to avoid having to cross the street into the secondary lot at the back of the strip mall's parking lot. I don't know how long the line was before they opened the door, but this Kohl's is at the end of a very long strip mall that also contains a Petco and a grocery store. The line almost reached the grocery store when we saw it. Bath & Body Works is also open at this entirely unreasonable hour, I guess hoping to lure shoppers there for the Kohl's deals, but as we speed-walk past, trying to catch up with the end of the line, the store is empty.
People are generally in good spirits and seem to be feeling the holiday mood. Someone jokingly asks the manager, who is holding the door open, if there is breakfast inside. He says he wishes, as he hasn't had breakfast yet either. As we pass through the doors, scanning anxiously for an available cart (there are none), Marisa rattles off her list of things to buy - doorbuster deals she has researched online, cross-referenced against the list of presents she wants to buy for various family members. She clutches a wad of paper - things she has printed off online, coupons she has received as a Kohl's card-holder, her list. But she also wants to look at a deal on dinnerware and cookware - she's looking to replace, and a couple of the doorbuster deals fit the bill, but she wants to see them before she commits.
People aren't exactly running to get things, but there is definitely urgency in their steps as they head into the far corners of the store to pick up things they think might go quick. To Kohl's credit, they didn't really bury their deals - they are right out on the aisles or stacked on end caps, easy to find.
4:20AM, the corner of Men's and Jewelry in Kohl's. As probably the only consumer in the store right now who does not have a list (I finished my shopping last week), I have rapidly become designated packhorse and watch dog. I am standing over the cookware and dinnerware sets that Shelby and I were sent to retrieve, so that Marisa can check them out. Marisa is off to pursue $5 diamond letter necklaces. I watch a mother and her adult daughter argue about a jewelry set featured on the aisle table right across from me. "This is a good deal, isn't it?" the daughter asks. "Emory will love it, won't she?" The mother answers, eyeing the necklace and earring set skeptically, "Isn't she three?" "I'm going to get it anyway," the daughter says. "It's such a great price!"
This seems to sum up the attitude of everyone here. Great deals, cross-referenced with a list, an interesting give-and-take between what people think their families want, against what they're willing to spend and which deals they think are best. By the way, Marisa decided against both the cookware ("It's not really good quality, is it?") and the dinnerware ("It's just too plain"), both to the relief of my aching back.
4:50AM, almost to the front of the line at Kohl's. We have been standing in this line for over 20 minutes, joining it at the back of the store. Everyone in the line seems to believe that this is par for the course for Kohl's, so the grumbling is minimal. Miraculously, Marisa finds a friend in this crowd, a coworker who has her list literally plotted out on graph paper, complete with alternate choices at alternate locations and their opening hours. For example, she wants a camera for her nephew. Her first choice is at Target, which opens at 5AM, but her second choice is at Radio Shack, followed by a third choice at OfficeMax. She's getting anxious in the line, because at the rate we're going, we're not going to make Target by the 5AM opening.
5:15AM, Target parking lot. Marisa double-checks her list of deals again. She's very anxious about the time, because her prime purchase here is a gaming chair for $30 - she needs two, one each for her sons. We rush inside. The store itself is not crazy-packed, but the electronics department is mobbed. We easily find a red-shirt employee, who directs us to a pallet of the chairs. They are coming off the pallet and into people's carts about as fast as employees can stack them on. When Marisa grabs her two, there are only 3 boxes left. She has other things on her list - because she got the chairs, she apparently missed out on a $3 grilled cheese sandwich maker (which, honestly, I can't imagine what that would look like or how that could possibly be useful).
We get in line to check out at 6:30AM. No line is long, but we completely picked the wrong one. Target mailed out "spend $150 get a $15 gift card" coupon, and they were giving out $10 "pre-dawn" gift cards for some amount spent - I don't know how much. The two women in front of us in line had apparently already paid a couple of times already, because they were both trying to get more gift cards AND redeem gift cards already accumulated. The poor checker was completely confused. She got activated cards mixed up with unactivated cards, got the woman's cards mixed up with her cards, and on and on. The head cashier had to come and sort it all out and it took forever.
7AM, Starbucks at Target. We finally sit down. Marisa and her friend take stock of what they've purchased against what they still need, and where they should go next. They both want to go to Costco, and are shocked to learn that it doesn't open until 10AM - no special Black Friday holiday hours, apparently. As the sun finally rises, they decide to go to Walmart next. I'm out. I need a nap.
After my nap, I go with my family to Park Meadows Mall in Littleton, CO. It's an upscale mall for sure, anchored by Nordstrom, Macy's, Dillards, and JCPenney. After driving around for 20 minutes trying to find a parking space, we give up and pay the $7 for valet parking. Inside, the mall is thronged with people; all of them carrying bags, though it looks like JCP is the clear winner. As we wander the upper floor, a kid in front of us, still wearing his Dillards name tag, crows into his phone, "Nine thousand, dude! That's $1100 an hour, I can't believe it. I didn't even have to ask, people just walked up to me!"
Our conclusion at the mall is that most retailers were successful, even the high end ones like Nordstrom, but they were actually under-staffed. At Nordstrom, someone had spilled what looked like an entire cup of coffee just inside the entrance. My husband watched a woman slip in it as we were heading into the store. It was still there when we left. I think more people showed up, ready to buy, than most mall retailers anticipated.
So, was this better than last year? I think so. Were the prices better? I don't think so - I think retailers discounted deep and hard, and consumers responded not by dropping their entire budget at a loss-leading store, but by cherry-picking. Whether that turns out to be stealing the cherry off of retailers' holiday sundaes, or turning this holiday shopping season into a cherry all on its own remains to be seen.
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