A different shopping season
On a quiet Wednesday midmorning at Tanger Outlets, Jason and Kellie Schafer and son Benjamin were making a quick shopping stopover en route from their home in Fayetteville, N.C., to visit relatives in Buffalo, N.Y.
The Schafers weren’t planning to visit any stores on Thanksgiving, but said they might do some more online shopping over the holiday weekend.
Jason also ruled out bricks-and-mortar shopping on Black Friday.
“There’s plenty of opportunities later,” he said, adding that he and Kellie see online shopping over the holiday weekend as a stress-free way to complete their gift lists.
“Happy holidays, let’s not fight,” he said with a smile.
Staying out of the holiday shopping fray – which begins later today at many stores – was also on the mind of Ruth O’Donnell of Mars, who said she was shopping Wednesday in lieu of heading out to the stores on Thanksgiving, which she said she had done in years past.
This year, she said the focus will be on her family.
“With the state of the world right now, I don’t want to be in large crowds,” said O’Donnell, who like the Schafers, said she planned to shop online for more gifts on Cyber Monday.
Lisa Lane of Canonsburg plans to visit Kohl’s and some other area stores Friday, but she definitely won’t be heading out today, a trend that appears to be growing among many Americans. and a growing number of major retailers as well.
“We don’t shop on Thanksgiving,” Lane said earlier this week. “I think it’s a time for family.”
While stating that she shops online for Christmas presents for family and friends throughout the year, Lane said she won’t be looking for anything in particular on Black Friday, but plans to get to the stores between 7 and 8 a.m., when many of the sales will be in full swing.
Despite its longtime status as the official starter for the holiday shopping season, there are indications that Black Friday may be losing some of its luster.
The National Retail Federation is projecting that 135.8 million people will be either shopping online and in stores or using both approaches this season. The NRF says that figure is up from the 133.7 million who shopped the Thanksgiving weekend in 2014.
But when CivicScience, a company that collects real-time consumer research data via polling applications that run on hundreds of U.S. publisher websites, asked 3,200 adult consumers whether they are more likely to shop for holiday gifts on Black Friday than last year, 10 percent said they are very or somewhat likely to do that, which is down from 13 percent in 2014. And 81 percent of those surveyed said they were “not at all likely” to shop on Black Friday this year, up from 78 percent who responded negatively a year ago when CivicScience asked the question.
“I think the retailers pushed it to the limit when they started opening stores on Thanksgiving,” said Dr. Audrey Guskey, associate professor of marketing at Duquesne University, who follows retail trends on a regional and national level. She added that the promotion of numerous “pre-Black Friday” sales on retailers’ online sites this year is probably taking the air out of many people’s inclination to shop on Thanksgiving or even Black Friday itself.
“Half of the shopping (this year) will be done online,” Guskey said, noting that the estimate includes browsing and buying and could mean that some people will ultimately go to a bricks-and-mortar store to make a purchase.
She also disputed the NRF’s projection that holiday sales would grow this year by 3.7 percent.
“I think we’re going to barely hit 2 percent growth,” Guskey said, adding that the estimate is in line with the past two seasons. She noted that this holiday season has fewer days to shop than last year.
There also appears to be a backlash from some retailers that have opted not to open stores on Thanksgiving. Those include chains with a local presence: Lowe’s, Home Depot and Gabriel Brothers, which stated in a news release that it was it wanted its employees to enjoy the holiday with friends and family. Others that are closed today include upscale department store chain Nordstrom, which also won’t reveal its holiday decorations in its stores until Black Friday.
Outdoor retailer REI is keeping its stores closed on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, advising customers to use those two days “to go out and get some fresh air.”
“They’re getting (a) huge national public relations” boost for making the decision to be closed on the holiday, Guskey said, “and making a move that a lot of us support.”
Regardless of when shoppers plan to head out today or this weekend, area retailers will be ready for them.
At Tanger Outlets, Manager Jodi Dague said the venue, which experimented last year with opening at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving and then closing between 2 and 6 a.m., will remain open all night and through Friday until 10 p.m. Saturday’s hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“On Thanksgiving night, we see a lot of groups shopping, whether it is college students that didn’t go home or they are home and catching up with old friends, families out for the night after dinner, extended families as well as ‘girls’ night out,'” she said.
According to Dague, the outlet usually sees its peak traffic times early in the morning and through lunchtime.
“After that, we are pretty steady throughout the weekend,” she said.
Washington Crown Center will open from 6 p.m. to midnight tonight; Friday, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
On Saturday, more than a dozen merchants in Washington will kick off the city’s first “Small Business Saturday” event. Begun by American Express in 2010, the annual event is designed to reach Main Street retailers across America.
Another dozen members of the Downtown Waynesburg Merchants Guild will also open their doors for Small Business Saturday.
“We are hoping for the sidewalks to be overrun with shoppers this Saturday,” said Nancy Wrick, a member of the Waynesburg Prosperous and Beautiful committee, which is promoting the event.
While Saturday gets sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the NRF found in a survey that 49 percent of those plan to shop in stores and online on Saturday, up from a 2014 survey in which 42.9 percent planned for Saturday shopping.
NRF also asked those Saturday shoppers if they would specifically shop for Small Business Saturday. The survey found 22.3 percent said they would and 54 percent said they might.
Despite the decision by many retailers to be closed today, those that do open know shoppers have the potential to ring their cash registers loudly and clearly.
According to ShopperTrak, a company that compiles retail industry statistics, shoppers spent an estimated $3.3 billion on Thanksgiving Day last year.