Black Friday leaves Richmond retailers optimistic

If Black Friday shopping is any indication, retailers could be on track for a strong holiday shopping season.

The season began late Thursday with thousands lining up at stores across the region for midnight openings, but the early openings did not discourage shoppers from packing parking lots and store aisles all day across the metro area.

"This really exceeded my expectations," said Todd Abrams, Macy's district vice president for stores that include the five in the Richmond area. The chain opened its stores at midnight for the first time and saw huge crowds throughout the area.

While the early interest was encouraging, customer traffic continued to build most of the day, Abrams said.

The first wave of shoppers stayed until about 3 a.m., and then the more traditional Black Friday shoppers began rolling in at around 6 a.m. And they were still arriving as of Friday afternoon, he said.

From Hull Street Road in Chesterfield County to West Broad Street in Henrico County to Colonial Heights, department stores, big-box retailers and malls reported heavy traffic beginning in the wee hours of the morning and continuing throughout the day.

Merchants were buoyed by beautiful weather and a younger shopper who came out early.

But huge discounts, as is the case most Black Fridays, played a major role.

"It's been a zoo. It's unbelievable. It's been so steady all day we're have a hard time keeping up," said Ron Harries, regional manager for the electronics and appliance retailer hhgregg, one of the chains that opened at midnight. Customers were looking for deals on TVs, appliances and phones.

Pricing is a big deal, especially this year as the economy struggles to bounce back after a couple of very difficult years.

But concerns about the economy could wind up working in retailers' favor, some analysts say.

Low confidence prompted retailers to offer more discounts this year, and that may lead to a boost in sales, said Craig Johnson, president of the consulting firm Customer Growth Partners. Revenue in the first 24 hours of Black Friday may grow to $27 billion, an 8 percent increase from the same period a year ago, Johnson told Bloomberg News.

David Bassuk, managing director of retail at the consultancy AlixPartners, says retailers are going to have to do a lot of discounting during the holiday shopping season to keep customers coming back.

"Consumers have made it clear that they're only going to spend so much money, and the people who are going to get them to open their wallet first are going to win," he told The Associated Press. "This is a consumer who is smart and well-informed but also cash-strapped and cautious."

Sheila Hines of Chesterfield plans to do her best to help prop up the economy.

Standing in line outside of Old Navy at 11:45 p.m. Thursday to buy a coat for her niece, Hines said she was headed to Macy's, Target and Walmart.

"I plan on going all day," she said of looking for bargains.

The holiday season is historically the busiest time of the year for merchants.

A National Retail Federation survey found that as many as 152 million people expect to shop, in stores or online, from Friday to Sunday, up from the 138 million who said they would shop during the same time period last year.

The retail group predicts that sales this season will increase 2.8 percent from last year to $465.6 billion. Sales increased 5.2 percent in the 2010 holiday season from the previous year.

And the International Council for Shopping Centers expects holiday sales to increase 2.2 percent for November and December compared with last year.

At Chesterfield Towne Center, the only local mall to open at midnight, more than 3,000 people showed up.

More importantly, customers kept coming, mall manager Ashley York Venable said.

While there was a lull between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m., "by 9 a.m. it heated back up and hasn't looked back ever since," she said Friday afternoon.

"I am extremely pleased with the results."

Other area malls reported similar strong customer traffic.

Virginia Center Commons in Henrico had a good turnout of shoppers at midnight for the handful of retailers that opened hours before the mall's official 4 a.m. starting time. "Momentum has continued throughout the day," mall manager Angela Crowder said.

Joseph Frye, general manager for Stony Point Fashion Park in South Richmond, said customer traffic was good all day.

"Most stores report sales at a brisk pace and are on pace to meet or beat last year's sales numbers," Frye said. "Weather is great, mall traffic is very strong and stores have been busy all day. We see a lot of store shopping bags in the center."

He saw similar patterns at Regency Square in western Henrico. His company also manages that mall.

For many shoppers, the early openings gave them a reason to come out on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday season, for the first time.

"I've never done this before," said Patrese Pyle of Chesterfield, who shopped for clothes at the Old Navy in Chesterfield Towne Center when the store and mall opened at midnight.

She was drawn, in large part, by the heavy discounting.

Daniel Burris, who lives in North Richmond and was home on break from the University of Maryland, never had experienced early-morning Black Friday shopping. But he wanted to snag a deal on a television — and his uncle had stood in line at the Target store on West Broad Street near Libbie Avenue.

"I'm already up," Burris said about the midnight opening. "It is a better time than waking up so early in the morning."

Despite the early indications of strong Black Friday sales, experts caution that it is too soon to make any long-term prediction on how the holiday selling season will go.

"The increase in consumers is a good sign early, but it doesn't necessarily mean the overall holiday is going to fare much better than last year," Marshal Cohen, an analyst at Port Washington, N.Y.-based NPD Group, told Bloomberg News.

People are spending about the same as last year while "nothing has shown us it's going to be great, and nothing has shown us it's going to be terrible," he said.