Big Black Friday Crowd Hit Stores for Thanksgiving Shopping

1. Big Black Friday Crowd Hit Stores for Thanksgiving Shopping Black Friday may not what it once was, but that did not stop the crowd for the bargain shoppers from rushing the big chains and department stores for Black Friday deals. The several industries predicated traffic at physical stores would end the weekend lower, shoppers around the country lined up at target Macy’sand J.C. Penny stores in advance of Thursday openings. Macy’s CEO told CNBC that traffic was stable in the morning at his company’s Herald Square Flagship, which opened on Thursday at 5:00 P.M. The crowd in 16,000 piled into the store at that time and roughly 1,000 more people than last year, the store opened an hour later. CEO Kevin Mansell told CNBC, At Kohl’s, traffic was up onThanksgiving day. Shoppers also waited outside a number of big box department store chains for Thanksgiving deals to start. It Included a New Jersey Target, where a line of 600 people started building at noon and outlasted pockets of rain ahead of its 6:00 P.M. After Plunging overnight, the crowds once again picked up on Friday, Mall operator JLL, which opened 10 of centers on or before 6:00 P.M. on Thanksgiving, said Nine of these properties reported strong traffic that day and the majority of those centers traffic remained stable in the morning with roughly 60 percent saying their tenants had report traffic that was line up than last year. At the South Shore Plaza mall in Braintree, Massachusetts,store appeared busier than last year, Keta Ferrara, a partner In Deloitte’s Boston office, told CNBC Friday.All the department stores appeared busy and things were littile more slow moving at the smaller specialty shops, she said South Plaza opened at 12:01 A.M. Black Friday . “ I saw a few people they had done quite a bit of shopping,” Ferrara said “ There must be definitely a lot of good deals you can see out here”

2. ‘CouchFriday’ The double digit online sales growth kept some shoppers at home, as retailers like Wal- Mart, Kohl’s and Target offered the same deals online and stores. Retailers rung up $1.93 billion in online sales on Thanksgiving an 11.5 percent increase over last year coming in just short of forecasts, according to Adobe Digital Insights. The firm measures,80 percent of all transactions from the top 100 U.S. retailers, said online sales grow to 11.3 percent,to $3.05 billion. “ They did call Black Friday ‘Counch Friday’, just because we think store traffic could be down as much as 3 to 4 percent,” Cowen and Company analyst Oliver Chen said .Despite that apparent slowdown, million of shoppers filed into Walmart’s stores on Thursday at 6:00 P.M.snatching up televisions, drones, cookware, toys and pajamas. Victoria’s Secret,Foot Locker and Urban Outfitters were also drawing large crowds, Dana Telsey Advisory Group, told CNBC. Other stand outs were Kohl’s, American Eagle and Best Buy, analysts said. At Target, Popular deals included a 50-inch 4K TV set for less than $250 and a $10 oversize teddy bear that sold out. Shoppers also scooped up Apple watchers, Nerf, Lego toys, gaming systems, sleepwear and hover boards. The most emerging trends. Seeing while guests were in our stores, shopping for those big door buster items and they continued to shop multiple categories,”Target CEO Brain Cornel, said Thursday night. Slow at specialty Shops,Amazon to top Last year Traffic was slower at several of the mall based specialty shops,including Chico’s, Abercrombie & Fitch and Banana Republic, Stifel analyst Richard Jaffe said in a research note. Part of that was due to a shift in spending to the web. At Target and Kohl’s, Thanksgiving Day was the largest for its site. Thursday was one of the year’s top online shopping days for Walmart and at Amazon the company was on pace to surpass last Black Fridayin terms of items ordered.“Ones that are really making it easy for the customer and focusing on them will be the winners” Stacey Wildlitz, President of SW Retail Advisors, told CNBC. Some 137.4 million people were expected to shop over the holiday weekend, with roughly three-fourths of them are planning to so on, Black Friday, From the National Retail Federation’s consumer survey. That compares with 21 percent they would shop on Thanksgiving Day.“Overall, we think sales are go up and consumers are going to spend more,” said Matthew Shay, NRF CEO. He added, consumers entered the season feeling more confident. It was reflected in strong October sales numbers reported by the Commerce Department, he said. However, independent data showed a dip in November spending ahead of Black Friday and includes information from The NPD Group, found the dollar sales in the second week of November election week fell 8 percent over the prior year. That data was based off sales in technology,toys, apparel, athletic footwear and prestige fragrances. Also Read: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 2016: What Time It starts & where to Stream

3. ‘ChristmasCreep’s Debate Black Friday deals have been seeping into turkey time for the past several years, The trend looks often back in 2013, when Macy’s,Best Buy and J.C.Penney joined the Targets and Toys R Us in opening their stores after Thanksgiving dinner.That movement has since accelerated,with retailers inching their start times earlier each year. This season, however, many retailers stuck with their prior year plans, signaling Jefferies analyst Daniel Binder said could be a “Ceasefire” in the “arms race” to open earlier.Others retailers and property owners changed their tack this season, partly hopes in bringing some excitement back to Black Friday and includes CBL and Associates,which closed nearly all of its 89 shopping centers until 6:00 A.M. Black Friday.At the Mall of America, all but the three of its more than 520 stores like Macy’s, Sears and the Crayola Experience stayed dark. “Black Friday in history has been sucha great shopping day,” CBL CEO Stephen Lebovitz told CNBC last month.”Its lost luster because we have dilute it and we want to bring back Black Friday and make it fun”. This industry is torn on whether Thanksgiving store hours are worth the trouble for retailers, who incurred additional payroll expenses when they opt in. However, analysts generally agree that for retailers who have customers that are more price sensitive and it makes sense to stay open. That’s because many shoppers choose to spend on either Thanksgiving or Black Friday morning is a store is closed on Thursday, they are likely to head to a competitor instead. Where an individual retailer falls in that debate, it can be tough to gauge the success of the season during the spread out Black Friday sales event. “Today’s really the first step in the battle,’ Kevin Quigg, chief strategist at ACSI Funds, told CNBC.” The war is the entirely of the holiday season”