Black Friday early birds left their turkey at home as they rushed to take advantage of the earliest deals on Thanksgiving day.
The holiday shopping season continued to kick off early this year as more stores increasingly opened on Thanksgiving, with sales continuing throughout Monday.
“Usually they are pretty busy, “ said L’Patricia manager, Bibiana Sanchez when discussing her Black Friday experiences. “This year has been really slow though, since we opened at 8 p.m. when we usually open at midnight.”
Although some store managers felt the kick-off to the holiday shopping season started slowly, there were definitely crowds of shoppers on the holiday. The parking lots at some shopping centers like Town East Mall were almost full on Thanksgiving.
While some shoppers took full advantage of the deals retailers offered, other businesses decided to stay closed on the holiday.
“I feel like doing the midnight or 8 o’clock opening the night before and having stores open for 30 solid hours is a little bit excessive,” said owner of Piermarini Boutique, John Piermarini.
Even though workers’ perspectives on opening hours varied, it seemed that everyone appreciated the sales on any day.
“Today was really awesome,” said assistant buyer at Piermarini Boutique, Brooke Nielsen. “We were pretty busy and it was consistent throughout the day. It’s always fun to see our favorite customers and help them pick out their holiday outfits.”
“I think that keeping the event on Friday keeps it as a special day, verses washing it out and trying to turn it into Black Friday week,” said Piermarini.
The shopping went on regardless of the different approaches retailers took. Deals continued all day Monday, as retailers pushed holiday shoppers to take advantage of discount shopping online.
