Early Shoppers Queue Up, and Analysts See Some Stellar Deals

Work crews were still cleaning up confetti from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade when the lines began forming outside the storefronts in Herald Square.

Some shoppers were there for the sales, starting across the nation earlier than ever this year. Others were there just to revel in the spectacle of what many retailers are now calling 'Gray Thursday.'

And this year, that nickname - in wider use as Black Friday cedes its dominance as the bargain-day start of the holiday shopping season - has taken on an added meaning. Retailers warily eyed the rain and snowstorms that waylaid thousands of holiday travelers and consumers overnight and in some regions, caused power outages.

Still, the weather did not stop the most eager shoppers. The electronics and appliances store HHGregg opened its doors at 4 p.m. Best Buy, J. C. Penney and Toys 'R' Us opened at 5 p.m., with Target and Macy's in close pursuit at 6 p.m. Kmart had been open since 6 a.m. and intends to stay open 42 hours, until midnight on Friday. Many Walmart stores are also open 24 hours, though Black Friday sales kick off at 6 p.m.

Juan Rubi, 46, of Washington Heights, N.Y., walked out of Kmart Thursday afternoon with a bag of Christmas ornaments and clothing.

'For me, the economy has improved,' said Mr. Rubi, who works at a money transfer company. 'This year feels better than last year. But I don't think I will shop more.'

Stores are doing their best to change his mind, and the minds of shoppers across the country who have remained wary of opening up their purse strings this year despite a brightening economy.

In Chicago, for example, 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 student from Chicago, 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. As a student, she said, 'things are hard economically.'

Eager to make up for what has been a year of lackluster sales, retailers are 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' Intel laptop priced at just $100. At Target, the Element 40' flat-screen television will carry a price tag of just $119. And Toys 'R' Us is offering a Polaroid 7' 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 are also behind 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' 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 online sales rose 11.3 percent between midnight and noon Thanksgiving Day. Shoppers using smartphones and tablets made up 45 percent of the online traffic and accounted for 28 percent of all online sales, the data tracker said, both gaining share over last year. But so far, online shoppers' average orders came to about $132, little changed from the same time last year.

The aggressive discounting from online retailers has pressured prices down across the board. Walmart said earlier this month that its stores would match prices of deals offered by its online competitors, including Amazon. Over all, median prices for high-definition televisions are down 17 percent on average, retail analysts at J. P. Morgan said in a report earlier this week.

Economists are closely watching whether these rock-bottom deals can entice shoppers to spend during what retailers consider the biggest shopping weekend of the year. 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. October personal income and spending data released by the Commerce Department on Wednesday showed that consumers stayed within their budgets, spending 0.2 percent more even as wages and salaries rose 0.3 percent.

The industry group National Retail Foundation 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 faster clip compared to the 2013 holiday season, when sales grew 3.1 percent, and makes 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.'

Anton Wilkins, who lives on the Upper East Side, planned to spend most of Thursday night into early Friday morning going from store to store in Herald Square with his son, daughters and cousins. He lamented that stores were opening earlier on Thanksgiving, but only because it meant he had to eat his Thanksgiving meal earlier in the day to make time to shop.

A manager of a comedy club, Mr. Wilkins, 50, he that was feeling confident financially this year, but that he probably wasn't going to spend as much on gifts because he wasn't going to be shopping for electronics.

'We already have a house full of them,' he said.

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