 "Photo: Larissa Mueller")
The cold spell that blew across Central Texas in time for Thanksgiving did not deter local shoppers from taking advantage of Black Friday sales.
U.S. sales rose 8.3 percent on the day after Thanksgiving compared to last year, according to a report by ShopperTrack RCT Corporation, a company that provides shopper traffic information. Many Central Texas businesses said they sold more items this year than during last year's shopping frenzy.
With the dollar sliding, oil prices rising and the subprime mortgage fallout looming, the holiday retail season is one way consultants analyze the strength of the U.S. economy.
Frederick Crawford, managing director at AlixPartners, a turnaround consulting company, said that, amid economic challenges, people are buying fewer gifts.
"Clearly, it was mission-based shopping," Crawford said. "People had their list, and they were very specific in what they were looking for."
The doors at Barton Creek Square Mall opened at 5 a.m. Most stores opened at 6 a.m., but many opened earlier. The mall greeted shoppers with free coffee and donuts to fuel the early morning shopping spree. Brochures for specials that run from Black Friday through Christmas could be found at every entrance to the shopping center.
The day after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday is called Black Friday because at one time it was considered the day retailers turned profitable, or in the black, for the year.
While most of the UT community was out of town for the holiday or in College Station for the football game against Texas A&M, a few students worked at stores near campus. Electrical engineering sophomore Zack Vela worked on Friday at Whole Earth Provision Company on San Antonio Street.
"I came back from Houston to get some studying done and also to come to work," Vela said.
Vela said that the campus location was nearly dead, but assistant manager Casey Papiendick said the store was pretty busy early in the day.
The rainy weather and holiday negatively affected Tyler's on Guadalupe Street, said pre-computer sciences sophomore and Tyler's manager Jewel Aguirre.
"It was nothing special for us," Aguirre said. "It was actually dead because most of our traffic is UT students and foot traffic from the Drag."
Aquirre said business picked up on Saturday.
The Best Buy at the Mueller Airport redevelopment site opened at 5 a.m. on Friday morning, but customers were already lined up when employees arrived at 3 a.m. to open the store, said operations manager Martha Garza.
"Our hottest-selling items were computers," Garza said. "We had three really good laptop deals, but we didn't get as many UT students as we were hoping for."
She also said that it was a really strong start to the store's first holiday season.
Video games and consoles were also hot sellers this
weekend.
Sales were strong at GameStop at Highland Mall because of demand for the Nintendo Wii, the Playstation Portable and newly released video games.
Assistant Manager Tanya Therrell was greeted by shoppers in line for the Wii at 6 a.m. when she opened the store.
"Sales were better than last year by a few thousand dollars, which really surprised me because of the slow economy," Therrell said. "We didn't even advertise that we had the Wii in stock. If we would have, it would have been a little crazier."
She said the most popular video games for Black Friday shoppers were "Super Mario Galaxy," "Assassin's Creed" and "Call of Duty 4."
However, shopping traffic is not necessarily the best indicator of retail sales figures, as many shoppers have switched to online shopping and gift cards. The new phenomenon "Cyber Monday," when people shop online the Monday after Thanksgiving, is also expected to play a significant role in holiday retail sales.
A survey conducted by online retailers association Shop.org predicts 72 million shoppers will use the Internet to buy gifts today, up from 61 million last year.
Be the first to comment on this article!