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Black Friday deals were everywhere, but it wasn’t the doorbusters bringing out the crowds

Black Friday is famous for low prices on TVs and appliances and it’s when many Americans shop for those things for themselves.

The early bird Black Friday shopper is becoming extinct — preserved in memories of holidays past when the day’s best deals drew lines of buyers willing to wait in long lines for a bargain.

With those deals now spread over weeks online, shoppers came alive later in the day on Friday, packing North Texas malls and shopping centers in what’s expected to be the best holiday season for retailers in 20 years.

In Dallas, the 5 a.m. Black Friday openings at Academy Sports & Outdoors, Best Buy, Kohl’s and Walmart were tame but productive for people who ventured out into temperatures in the mid-30s. Shoppers mostly stayed in their cars until stores opened, not feeling the urgency to line up hours ahead of time.

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Similar scenes played out in Plano, where Bed Bath & Beyond opened at 6 a.m. to a handful of shoppers. Likewise, it wasn’t busy at the Walmart and Lowe’s stores on North Central Expressway in Plano.

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By noon, two of the area’s premier malls, Galleria Dallas and NorthPark Center, were crowded with shoppers carrying multiple bags and out-of-state license plates were a common sight in their parking lots.

Crowds of people shop at Galleria Dallas during Black Friday shopping in Dallas on Friday,...
Crowds of people shop at Galleria Dallas during Black Friday shopping in Dallas on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021. Santa performed during the Grand Tree Lighting Show. (Rebecca Slezak/The Dallas Morning News)(Rebecca Slezak / Staff Photographer)
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“We’re millennials and not supposed to like shopping, but you can’t get this experience online,” said Joe Franklin, 27, of Orlando, who was in town to visit relatives for Thanksgiving. He was shopping for himself and for holiday gifts.

Jessica Pham, 30, was buying fragrances for herself and her mother-in-law at the new Jo Malone store at NorthPark. She moved to Dallas from St. Louis this year and Googled the brand that she had been buying at Nordstrom. “I was glad there was a whole new store,” Pham said.

Employee Chad Spurrier, left, works with shopper Jessica Pham as she conducted her Black...
Employee Chad Spurrier, left, works with shopper Jessica Pham as she conducted her Black Friday shopping at Jo Malone London inside NorthPark Center in Dallas, on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021. (Ben Torres / Special Contributor)
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At the new Aritizia store at NorthPark, there were more than 40 shoppers waiting to check out. Aritzia recently took over space vacated by Gap.

Lines stretched out the door at Lego, Nike, NorthFace, Outdoor Voices and Louis Vuitton. It was similar scene at the Galleria. At Allen Premium Outlets, most of its stores were crowded and designer brands such as Tory Burch even had lines at 6 a.m. that took 45 minutes to get inside.

Those lines were sometimes a result of pandemic protocols the stores still have in place to limit customers allowed inside and at other times it was a staffing issue.

Allison Scott, a co-owner of the Apricot Lane apparel store at Galleria Dallas, said her staff was busy unpacking and steaming clothes Thursday night to be full for Black Friday. “We’re hearing from customers who say they wish we had their size, but they understand the supply chain issues,” she said.

Jayden Vasquez, 5, plays with a yellow Transformers car in Express' store window during...
Jayden Vasquez, 5, plays with a yellow Transformers car in Express' store window during Black Friday at Galleria Dallas in Dallas on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021. Crowds filled the mall as various stores offered deals the day after Thanksgiving. (Rebecca Slezak/The Dallas Morning News)(Rebecca Slezak / Staff Photographer)

The malls aren’t using old marketing tricks of overnight shopping and early openings much anymore. The two Dallas malls opened at normal hours and are planning to keep it that way with extended hours limited to one hour on either end of the day.

“Our holiday hours are not as aggressive and we’ve had no negative feedback about it,” said Angie Freed, general manager at the Galleria. The last time the mall was open on Thanksgiving was 2018 and no one is asking for that to return.

Deborah Weinswig, CEO of Coresight Research, was in stores in the Northeast where the scene looked similar.

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“On-mall is stronger than off-mall,” she said in an email update. Off-price discounters have low inventory levels and department stores are “shockingly strong,” she said. Feared out-of-stock merchandise was mainly limited to some home goods.

If malls are staging a comeback, that would buck the retail industry’s recent experience with online sales accelerating before and during the pandemic.

“People want to come in and shop in person,” said Kristen Gibbins, executive director of marketing and strategy at NorthPark. “We’ve been seeing traffic moving higher month after month. October traffic was not only higher than in 2019 but the highest for the month on record.”

Brooke Baker, 16, center, Brooklyn Brothers, 16, right, and Micah Tuthill, 16, far-right,...
Brooke Baker, 16, center, Brooklyn Brothers, 16, right, and Micah Tuthill, 16, far-right, wait in line with other shoppers to pay for merchandise inside of Aritzia on Black Friday at NorthPark Center in Dallas, on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021. (Ben Torres / Special Contributor)
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At Academy on East Northwest Highway and Walmart in Timber Creek Crossing, employees were stationed at the front of the big-box stores and inside to help shoppers find whatever it was that dragged them out so early.

This was only the second time Louis Garcia, 40, of Dallas, had ventured out on Black Friday. He loaded up his hatchback with a 40-inch TV, soundbar and a projector with screen.

“This is for my kid’s room,” Garcia said. “The prices were good. The projector was $49 and the TV was $128.”

Black Friday is famous for prices on TVs and appliances and it’s when many Americans shop for those things for themselves. The National Retail Federation expects spending to reach as high as $859 billion this November and December — an 8.5% to 10.5% spike over last year to as much as $859 billion. Over the last five years, the annual increase has been 4.4%.

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Miriam Rojas. her brother and her husband load a 65-inch TV into the back of their car at...
Miriam Rojas. her brother and her husband load a 65-inch TV into the back of their car at Walmart during Black Friday shopping in Dallas on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021. (Rebecca Slezak / Staff Photographer)

Miriam Rojas, 36, and Iris Cornejo, 32, headed back into Walmart about 6 a.m. after loading up an SUV with two 65-inch TVs, an air fryer, a box of Tupperware and some Farberware pots and pans. Rojas’ husband and her brother took their new household goods home.

“There was no room for us to sit anyway,” Rojas said. “The prices were great. The Tupperware was $7. The TVs were $448 and $598.”

They went back in to look for other gifts on their lists. Rojas said it has been years since she shopped for Black Friday early-bird deals, after she “nearly died” at a Walmart on Forest Lane in Dallas a few years ago. After reading that online shopping had sapped the in-store scene, she decided it was safe to go brick-and-mortar again.

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For some, it’s a tradition they just don’t want to break even if they’ve become regular online shoppers. Discovery is another reason.

“This is a big pleasant surprise,” said Michelle Wood, 41, of Houston, who was in town for the holiday. She was shopping with Ericka Luddy, 36, of Dallas, and they were excited to find a display of Yellowstone sweatshirts and long sleeve shirts at Academy.

“I’m going to wear it when I’m watching the show,” Luddy said.

Yellowstone, a story about a family on a ranch in Montana and starring Kevin Costner, was the most-watched cable TV show in 2020. Season 4 started streaming earlier this month.

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Michelle Wood picks up a Santa dog bed while shopping at Academy Sports + Outdoors during...
Michelle Wood picks up a Santa dog bed while shopping at Academy Sports + Outdoors during Black Friday shopping in Dallas on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021. Wood also planned to go mall shopping and to Target on Friday. (Rebecca Slezak / Staff Photographer)

Luddy and Wood said they came in for sneakers, hunting apparel, ammo and good deals on guns. “And for me,” said Wood, who was wearing holiday earrings, “it’s the ritual of it all.”

The early scene

At 4:30 a.m., the Best Buy north of Park Lane on the Central Expressway frontage road would have had more than 1,000 people waiting during past Black Fridays. This year, there were about 10 cars with people staying warm inside them. By 5 a.m., enough people had appeared to form a line of maybe 50 shoppers.

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A line forms outside of Best Buy only 10 minutes before it's 5 a.m. opening during Black...
A line forms outside of Best Buy only 10 minutes before it's 5 a.m. opening during Black Friday shopping in Dallas on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021. Less than 50 people stood in line waiting for the store to open. (Rebecca Slezak / Staff Photographer)

Employees took away the temporary line posts outside Kohl’s at Medallion Center in Dallas just after 6 a.m., with one noting that the markers weren’t really needed this year. Inside the store, shoppers easily moved through aisles that weren’t stuffed with supplies of doorbusters that made navigating difficult in past years. There was one person checking out an hour after the store opened.

What’s up online?

Most of Black Friday’s discounts were already available online, where consumers spent $5.1 billion on Thanksgiving, which was on the low end of a range predicted by Adobe Analytics.

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Salesforce, drawing data from a billion consumers globally, said U.S. online sales totaled $6.9 billion on Thanksgiving and $30.7 billion globally. It expected Black Friday spending to reach $12.9 billion in the U.S. and $62.8 billion globally.

Shoppers encountered Thanksgiving price discounts averaging 27%, down 7% from a year ago, according to Salesforce. Makeup, home appliances and clothing saw the biggest price cuts.

“With people getting back into physical stores and making purchases earlier in the holiday season, demand is smoothing out beyond the typical peak shopping days,” said Rob Garf, vice president and general manager of retail at Salesforce.

Twitter: @MariaHalkias

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