Report from the Frontline of the Shopping Wars

Friday, November 28th, 2008
By Stephen Baker, Vice President, Industry Analysis

Today is Black Friday, November 28, 2008 - the traditional start of the holiday shopping season - and for what seems like the 100th time (although it is only about 10 times) I awoke early and trudged off to the shopping malls and power centers of Northern Virginia to check on the health of the electronics business. While we won’t know how successful these sales were until December 8th, when NPD’s weekly data is released and we deliver our annual Black Friday shopping report later that week, as well as update everyone through our joint Black Friday webinar with DisplaySearch, I am here to tell you that, based on my shopping this morning, and other reports already trickling out, that our fears that Black Friday would fall flat are likely overblown.

The collapse of sales and consumers’ expectations over the last eight weeks (as well documented in NPD’s weekly tracking service data and the NPD Consumer Technology Holiday Snapshot Report) has been swift and scary. The key question for today is whether that decline can be arrested by the deep discounts and shopping excitement that Black Friday has traditionally brought.

Shoplocal reported a large increase in customer views of Black Friday specials, especially in electronics, and sales of the special products brought in for this event have always sold out. Many Black Friday ad sites reported that almost every retailer posted their Black Friday specials for purchase on Thanksgiving Day. We should expect sales of both brick and mortar and online retailers to be strong on those specially priced goods.

And there were plenty of consumers anxious to get their hands on good deals this morning at the Dulles Town Center Plaza in Northern Virginia. At 4:30am the line at Walmart was as long as I have ever seen and Best Buy’s line was almost equally populated. A little further up the road in the Potomac Run Plaza, Sears, Circuit City, Target, and Office Depot didn’t seem as busy. Circuit had much shorter lines than in years past, there were almost no lines at Target and Office Depot at 5am, but by 6am, when they opened, the lines were longer and moving quickly into the stores. Sears only had a few customers waiting to get in.

Walmart customers made a mad dash as the doors opened, and Best Buy customers were still patiently waiting to make their way into the store 30 minutes after the doors opened. I finally got into Walmart around 5:30am and it was fairly typically packed, with almost all the action taking place in the electronics section. Nearly every cart had a 32″ or 42” LCD in it, or a PC, and by this time the front- page specials seemed to have been wiped clean. The lines were still too long at this Best Buy to get inside.

After this, we took off for Tyson’s Corner, the major shopping area in Northern Virginia and home to one of the highest grossing malls in the country. Here, around 6:15am, we were finally able to get inside a Best Buy and this one was still crowded, with plenty of merchandise available (although none of the advertised specials), lines moving swiftly and the staff and customers in a good mood. Interestingly, the Office Depot next door was still packed with a line out the door even at 6:30am. Staples, was much less crowded, with many of their doorbuster specials still available. Circuit City, across the street was busy as well but clearly winding down from the opening crush. Around 7:15am we entered the Tyson’s Corner Center, home to the first Apple store and a Sony Style location as well. The Sony store was fairly busy with lots of browsers and the Apple store was busy, but not packed. The clerks told me there had been a huge line for the 6am opening, but when I arrived around 8am the line was gone, and there were as many clerks as shoppers in the store.

The overall initial conclusion for Black Friday is that sales and traffic were strong, likely on par with prior years. Consumers were drawn by the appearance of bargains and low prices and electronics are increasingly the primary driver of consumers’ interest in Black Friday shopping.

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Other Links to this Post

1. Black Friday, Good News? | DisplaySearch Blog — December 4, 2008 @ 12:04 pm

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