Black Friday Sales Are Brisk, Retailers Say, Bolstered by Online Deals

Snow fell and temperatures dipped into the low 30s outside a Target and Best Buy just outside Boston. But they were there: the loyal customers of Massachusetts, where Blue Laws bar retailers from opening on Thanksgiving, who waited until 1 a.m. Friday to start their holiday weekend shopping.

Jennifer Gomes, 26, of Allston was first in line at Target at the Watertown Mall. She arrived at 5:30 p.m. and was surprised to find herself at the head of the line.

'I was like a big kid. I was flying down the street,' she said.

Big retailers, many of whom kicked off sales Thursday evening, reported brisk traffic overnight. Walmart said that 22 million shoppers streamed through stores across the country on Thanksgiving Day, more than the number of people who visit Disney's Magic Kingdom in an entire year, the retail giant pointed out.

Tablets, TVs, sheets, children's apparel and video games were the top five categories of the night, and Disney Frozen Snow Glow Elsa dolls was a top-selling toy, Walmart said. Best sellers online were video games, wireless prepaid phones, high-definition TVs and baby items.

Over all, about 140 million people are expected to shop in stores or online this weekend. That is more people than voted in the midterms earlier this month.

Still, as retailers jump-start their deals earlier and more sales move online, Black Friday itself is starting to fade in importance.

Casey Brefka, 28, who was waiting in line for Best Buy at Watertown, said he had grown up in Ohio, now lived in Allston, and wanted to see how the Black Friday scenes compared.

'I got used to the crowds in Ohio, so one of the things is like, 'Oh, how many people are going to be here when we pull into the parking lot?' And I was kinda disappointed. Like, there weren't that many.'

Mr. Brefka, who works for the Department of Public Health, said he did most of his shopping online. But he showed up around midnight Thursday night in hopes landing a 50-inch Panasonic LED HDTV for $200 - a deal available only in store.

Target said its best-selling goods in store were the Element 40' TV, the Xbox One, iPads and Nikon's L330 camera. In the first hour of stores opening, Target sold 1,800 TVs per minute and 2,000 video games per minute, the retailer said in a release. Keurig's K40 brewer and Dyson's DC50 vacuum were other top sellers, Target said.

Neither Walmart nor Target gave specific sales figures.

Economists are closely watching whether retailers can entice shoppers to spend during what retailers consider the biggest shopping weekend of the year, especially after a year of lackluster sales so far. A brightening economic outlook, and ever-cheaper gas prices, are starting to lift consumer confidence. But there are also signs of lingering wariness among consumers, after what has been an uneven economic recovery marked by anemic wage growth, especially for low-income households.

In Chicago, shoppers at an Old Navy store were greeted by employees in white-trimmed crimson stocking caps with miniature megaphones announcing, 'The entire store is 50 percent off!,' generating muted applause.

Jordan Anderson, 22, a local student, cited that deep discount when asked why she was shopping on Thanksgiving. She planned to do more of her shopping on Thursday than during the rest of the season, adding that she was drawn out in the evening by the deals. She's a student, she said, and 'things are hard economically.'

In Manchester, Iowa, Russell Marriott enlisted a babysitter and grandmother to watch his two children as he and his wife - both unemployed - trekked to Walmart at 3 a.m. He spent most of the day perched at the back corner of the store waiting for the $329 Xbox One Halo The Master Chief Collection Bundle; she waited in a separate line for an Xbox controller.

Saving money is important for them, he said, and his wife wanted the game.

'It makes a difference,' Mr. Marriott said.

Stores are doing their best to get consumers to spend, luring shoppers to their stores with some eye-popping deals that could increase traffic but also eat away at thinning profit margins.

The 'doorbuster' deal at Staples is an Asus 11.6-inch Intel laptop priced at just $100. At Target, the Element 40-inch flat-screen television will carry a price tag of just $119. And Toys 'R' Us is offering a Polaroid 7-inch Android Tablet priced at just $20.

And online, which makes up a bigger share of holiday sales each year, retailers have been offering Black Friday deals for many days now, stretching what was once a one-day shopping frenzy into a week or more of sales.

Online retailers have also driven the heavier-than-ever discounting this year. Amazon has priced out many of the country's biggest retailers in the big-ticket holiday items, offering a Samsung 55-inch 4K flat-screen television for $899. Dealnews.com, which closely tracks Black Friday deals, declared Amazon's deal 'without a doubt' the cheapest name-brand 4K television it had ever seen.

IBM Digital Analytics, which tracks online shopping transactions in the United States, said sales rose 12 percent between midnight and 6 p.m. Eastern time Thanksgiving Day.

The National Retail Federation, an industry group, predicts that sales in November and December, excluding auto, gas and restaurant sales, will rise 4.1 percent from the same months last year to $616.9 billion. That is a slightly faster clip compared with the 2013 holiday season, when sales grew 3.1 percent and made up roughly a fifth of the retail sector's annual sales of about $3.2 trillion.

'It's been a very tough, challenging retail environment. A lot of retailers want to get out earlier and win some of those sales before their competitors do,' said James Russo, senior vice president of global consumer insights at the New York-based research firm, Nielsen.

'But consumers are now so trained to wait for those aggressive promotions,' Mr. Russo said. 'And they will.'

Some customers hoped to make some money by standing in the early lines.

Kevin Williams, 27, a computer technician from Hartford, Mich., was first in line at the Target in Benton Harbor, Mich., on Thursday evening. A seasoned pro at pre-Black Friday shopping, he purchased three televisions last year and 'flipped' them on eBay.

'Last year I sold three TVs I got for $199 for $385,' said Mr. Williams, who planned to do the same this year with the 40-inch LG television he would purchase for $119.

Right behind him in line was Brenda Lewis, 50, of Benton Harbor. She said her grandson was standing in the Best Buy line, and planned to sell his spot as opening time there drew closer. 'So far he's at $90' for his coveted spot in line, Ms. Lewis said.

But for scores of young adults and families in lines curled around a corner in West Hollywood, Calif., shopping on Black Friday is as much a social outing as it is a bargain hunt.

'It's a tradition. I've done it since I was a kid,' said Kim Ly, 22, in line at Best Buy. Ms. Ly, a shoe consultant from Hollywood, was with two roommates, both of whom said shopping on Black Friday had in recent years become something of an event.

Ms. Ly and one roommate, Ashley Gray, 22, said they considered heading out early for deals an efficient way to start their Christmas shopping, despite having had their credit cards hacked in a widespread breach last year.

'As sad as it is, it doesn't stop me,' Ms. Gray said of shopping on Black Friday, despite the security risk.

'I feel Black Friday is a fair and safe way to shop,' Ms. Ly said, citing an in-store purchase as a secure alternative to online shopping.

Amin Hashemi, 16, and his friends were the first in line to buy a 40-inch Samsung Smart television for $328, down from $500, and Beats by Dre headphones for $97, down from $170.

'It's not all about the shopping. We enjoy hanging out,' he said, as he also waited with his grandmother, 60, who is visiting from Iran. 'My grandmother wanted to come earlier to experience this. This is an experience.'

Not everyone walked away content after confronting the holiday rush.

'I'm hungry. My legs hurt. We're waiting for supper. The kids are at home, waiting for us,' said Bob Strief, 66, a retired hog farmer from Masonville, Iowa, in line at a Walmart for a $218 Emerson LED 50-inch TV.

'It better be a good TV,' Mr. Strief said.

In Apopka, Fla., Shereen Poleon, a 15-year-old high school student in Orlando, turned around and departed without opening her wallet at the Walmart Supercenter there.

'I'm done,' she said as she walked with her grandmother, Linda Poleon, 63, to their car. 'From now on I'm paying full price. I'm going to save myself the trouble.'

Asked what prompted such a resolution, she said that among several indignities, someone had rolled over her grandmother's feet with a shopping cart.

'I'm too old for that,' said the older woman, a native of the Caribbean island of St. Lucia.

It was a long day for the store workers, too.

Lenwood Williams, head of security at the DC USA shopping center, arrived at 7:40 a.m. to ensure orderly lines. He shared a small Thanksgiving feast with his fellow guards, all of them who had snacked throughout the day while on break.

He said this year was the first time the shopping center provided a Thanksgiving meal for the 16 guards on duty. (Last year, stores did not open until 9 p.m., so there was no need for it.)

'I chose to be here on Thanksgiving to make sure things ran smoothly,' he said.

And at the Walmart Supercenter in Apopka, an employee helped quell a disturbance among some shoppers waiting in line.

'They got a little antsy because it wasn't moving fast enough,' said the employee, Nykee Harrell, 24, who was making $12 an hour for the shift, considerably more than his usual $8. 'I had to step in and calm that situation. I'm the extra muscle.'

A few minutes later, a horde of customers raced to grab DVDs and CDs when store employees dropped a yellow tape - not unlike a crime-scene barrier - and allowed the throng to help themselves to the shelves in that particular section.

'Once you've got our item, please move back!' an employee shouted into a megaphone.

'It's always a bit of a mess when they let them in,' another worker, Tina Toole, said. 'They get crazy. It's ridiculous.'

Brandon Chapman, a 19-year-old senior at Apopka High School, was able to grab three DVDs for $4 each, and seemed pleased with the deal. But the crowd, he said, was a drawback.

'My advice is to get here early and wear body armor,' he said.