Photo by Adam Vogler
In the calm before the storm, Staples General Manager John Calderwood talks to his employees before opening the doors at 6 a.m. today.
Black Friday. It’s a peculiar American tradition, according to one Emporian who came to Kansas from England.
Simon Derbyshire showed up at 4 a.m. to get in line outside Staples, 2200 Industrial Road. This is his fourth year to arise before dawn to shop for Christmas bargains.
“It’s become tradition, it really has,” he said. “We don’t do this in England. We get up and have breakfast and things before shopping.”
Derbyshire said he was looking for a deal on a laptop.
Chilly temperatures and a precarious economic climate didn’t stop many shoppers from lining up outside stores before sunrise to snap up good deals for the Christmas shopping season.
“I’ve been here since about 2:30,” said Jacob Bortbeck, who was first in line outside Staples.
Bortbeck and his friends Keith Mease, Devin Bartley and Ben Reilly said they were looking for deals on school supplies.
“I’m trying to get a laptop,” Mease said.
Photo by Adam Vogler
Staples customers who began lining up at 2:30 a.m. to be assured of getting the stores early morning deals make their way through the checkout line. The Friday after Thanksgiving is seen as the beginning of the holiday shopping season.
According to an Associated Press report, Black Friday is so named because it historically has been the day during which the rush of holiday shoppers help retailers break into profitability. This year, with stores offering heavy discounts to spur consumer interest during an economic downturn, the effect of Black Friday for the industry could be markedly different.
The numbers for Black Friday are heavily analyzed because the day is seen as an effective way to judge how the rest of the shopping season will play out. Last year’s Thanksgiving weekend accounted for about 10 percent of overall holiday sales, according to ShopperTrak RCT Corp., the AP reported.
Technology was a big draw for the shoppers at Staples. Aside from laptops, many said they were also looking at GPS systems, flat-screen monitors and digital picture frames.
Despite the sizable crowd, Staples employee Dale Clack said the economy is definitely affecting the number of shoppers.
“That’s to be expected,” he said.
Clack said this is his sixth year working the morning after Thanksgiving.
“I’m pretty well-versed in this,” he said.
General Manager John Calderwood primed his crew of employees in the minutes before opening the doors at 6 a.m.
“Focus on the customer, lastly and most importantly,” he told them. “This will be a good chance for them to get a nice, warm feeling from us.”
That nice, warm feeling began with complimentary coffee and doughnuts waiting for those who stood in line.
This is Calderwood’s 10th year working on Black Friday. He said that after the initial crush of shoppers, the crowd typically would thin out, but that the flow of people would remain steady all day. He said the size of the crowd was pretty good, but that one noticeable difference this year is that people didn’t show up as early as they had in the past.
“This year, we still had people out there at 3 in the morning, and that’s pretty early, but to compare to last year, we had people showing up at about 1 in the morning,” he said. “It’s pretty different from years past, but now, as we’re getting ready to open the doors, it looks like we’ve got a pretty good crowd.”
Calderwood said he thinks the economy will have an effect on retailers this season.
“It’s gonna have to,” he said. “It’s gonna be a different year, but at the same rate, for the people who are prepared for it, they might see better discounts than they’ve ever seen. So the reverse could be true as well, but overall, Christmas is a great season for us. We also want the economy to do good because when businesses are doing good, people are shopping.”
Overall, retailers are expecting to see a good number of shoppers, and it showed at Staples, where people were still steadily streaming in almost an hour after the doors opened.
One shopper, Vince Hancock, said it was a smaller crowd this year, but the difficult economy offered a chance for shoppers to pick up many good deals they otherwise wouldn’t see.
“It’s a different economy,” he said. “And it’s different in deals.”
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