Shoppers out in force on Black Friday

As one woman exited out of the Sunglass Hut at the Gilroy Premium Outlets, she let out an audible sigh and exclaimed, “I survived.”
On what is traditionally the first shopping day of the Christmas season, throngs of people descended on the Gilroy Outlets, Walmart in Gilroy, Best Buy, Target and other places hoping to snatch up holiday deals that went for as much as 70 percent off at some spots.
“It looks great,” said Heather Roach, marketing director at the Gilroy Premium Outlets. “The parking lots look full and there’s lot of shoppers with bags.”
Like stores across the country, some of the Gilroy Outlet stores opened their doors at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day for what is dubbed “Midnight Madness.” A total of 66 of 145 Outlet stores opened in the first wave and by 8 p.m., nearly half of the outlet stores were open for business.
The doors were open all night long and stores report customers kept coming until about dawn, when things mellowed out.
“It’s already better than last year,” said U.S. Polo Manager Sonya De La Cruz. “Last night was a little rough.”
She said she hadn’t counted on people still coming into the store well after midnight. She added that things didn’t calm down until after 4 a.m., but picked up again by 7 a.m.
De La Cruz was among the few store managers who were on site during the late morning. Some store employees said managers had worked the night before and had gone home early Friday morning.
At U.S. Polo and stores across the Outlets, people were lining up early to get inside for door buster deals. Some of the best deals were at New York & Company, where merchandise was up to 70 percent off. Other stores, including Juicy Couture and J. Crew, had 50 percent off throughout the store.
The shopping fever even spread international.
Martin Kopecky decided to do some shopping at the Outlets while on vacation from the Czech Republic. He had been in the states for about three weeks and was joined by two friends who came in before Thanksgiving.
He said he enjoyed looking through some of the stores, but noted how the shopping frenzy was picking up.
“It’s pure madness. It’s starting to get more crowded,” Kopecky said, who had been shopping for five hours and was overloaded with bags.
Like a trendy nightclub, shoppers waited sometimes 20 to 30 minutes to get into Coach or 10 to 15 minutes to enter True Religion.
One woman, aghast at how early Coach had opened, queried if the store even had anything good left to sell.
A little further south in Gilroy, Best Buy shoppers started setting up tents Monday to be the first through the doors Thursday night.
Walmart, although open 24 hours, began its Black Friday deals at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving Day. Target in Morgan Hill and Gilroy opened by 8 p.m. to waves of shoppers.
But not everyone was happy with the idea of stores opening on Thanksgiving.
“I’d like the many employees of retail stores to be able to enjoy this holiday just as much as I’ll be able to,” Rene Spring wrote in an email to the Gilroy Dispatch. “Most likely, we’ll skip Black Friday’s shopping frenzy, too, and will decorate the house for the holidays instead.”
Morgan Hill Black Friday
At Target in Morgan Hill, one store cashier said there was a steady stream of people all night long. He said last year, some employees were playing cards to kill time, but this year, there was hardly any down time.
Target reported swarms of customers that formed lines clear to the back of the store, despite every register being open. By 7:30 a.m., there were still shoppers, but employees started restocking shelves and cleaning up from the night before.
Tape that marked off lines in the electronics section was being ripped up as just a handful of customers remained looking for video games and iPods.
Small Business Saturday
While the big box stores were competing for shoppers on Thanksgiving night, local shop owners are hoping to have their own version of Black Friday on Saturday.
Known as Small Business Saturday, local mom-and-pop shops are looking to give people an alternative to the bigger chains and hope to support the local community.
Those spending $100 before taxes at any combination of Downtown businesses can turn in their receipts into the Gilroy Downtown Business Association office between Dec. 1-14 and receive a $20 gift card to one of Gilroy’s downtown restaurants. For more information, email me*****@do************.com.
Also visit gilroywelcomecenter.org for more local events, including a tree lighting on Dec. 7.