November 2009

By Chris Burritt and Cotten Timberlake Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) — Shoppers gathered at Best Buy Co. , Target Corp. and Toys “R” Us Inc. stores from New Jersey to Texas well before midnight yesterday to take advantage of Black Friday deals on televisions, laptops and robot hamsters. “I do this because of my family,” Eihab Elzubier, a truck driver, said as he stood at the head of the line outside a Best Buy in Greensboro, North Carolina. He arrived at 9 a.m. Thursday and kept his place in the queue with the help of his wife, mother and sister. Elzubier, 41, figured the 20-hour wait will save him as much as $1,000. He plans to buy a 42-inch Samsung flat-panel TV for $547.99, a Sony laptop computer for $399.99, a Compaq laptop for $179.99, software and accessories. The day after U.S. Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday, the traditional beginning of holiday buying. Explanations of the phrase’s origins differ, one holding that it’s the weekend when retailers go to being in the black, profitable for the year. Stores open early on Black Friday and offer so-called doorbuster discounts to attract business. This year, shoppers say they plan to spend less on gifts than they did last year. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. , based in Bentonville, Arkansas, kept stores open all night so shoppers could grab $3 pajamas and $15 Miley Cyrus jeans when they went on sale at 5 a.m. Employees handed out vouchers for discounted consumer electronics to early arrivals and distributed circulars and maps indicating promoted items. By 1 a.m., about 50 people had lined up outside the Target in Jersey City, New Jersey, waiting for it to open at 5 a.m. Minerva Cuevas, 55, brought coffee, a sandwich and an umbrella. Spending Less “I’m getting a TV for my son,” said Cuevas, who does not work. The 32-inch flat-screen Westinghouse on sale for $246 was her first priority, she said. Cuevas, who lives in Jersey City, said she was planning to spend less this holiday season because of the economy. Sabit Sharma, a 26-year-old business analyst from Kearny, New Jersey, said she was also hoping to buy a $246 flat-screen TV at Target. “I’m helping the economy,” she said. Sharma said she may spend more this year on gifts than last year and hoped to have all her holiday shopping done by the end of the weekend. Members of more than a quarter of U.S. households plan to shop today, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, a New York-based trade group. With unemployment at 10.2 percent, price is more important to consumers this year than selection, quality or convenience, according to the National Retail Federation. Shoppers may spend an average of $682.74 on Christmas gifts this year, compared with $705.01 last year, according to a survey by the Washington-based federation. $5 Toys Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, cut some toy prices to $5. Walmart, J.C. Penney Co., Target, Macy’s Inc. and Sears Holdings Corp.’s Kmart all advertised discounted slow cookers for early shoppers in their Thursday circulars. Prices ranged from $3 to $20. “There’s a little more traffic than last year across the board, maybe 10 percent,” Bill Taubman, chief operating officer of Taubman Centers Inc., a U.S. real estate investment trust with 24 malls, said in a telephone interview today. The 12,000-car parking lot at Taubman’s Woodfield Mall in Chicago was 35 percent full by 6 a.m., compared with 28 percent last year, he said. Robot Hamsters Toys “R” Us , based in Wayne, New Jersey, opened stores at midnight, five hours earlier than last year, offering 220 doorbusters, compared with 150 in 2008. It promised to have thousands of the Zhu Zhu Pets, the robot hamsters that have sold out in recent months. “We have been more aggressive than ever before in our marketing and in our pricing,” Toys “R” Us Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jerry Storch said in a telephone interview Nov. 25. Before midnight yesterday, the parking lot at the Corbin’s Corner shopping center in West Hartford, Connecticut, was three- quarters full, and the line outside Toys “R” Us wound past seven other storefronts. Lorna Artibani, 52, was at a facility for the disabled at 5 a.m. Thanksgiving day, cooking for 65, before hosting a meal at home for a dozen family members until 10:30 p.m. An hour later, she and her 30-year-old daughter headed to the toy store to look for gifts for her 9-year-old granddaughter. “It’s kind of like the excitement of getting that elusive game,” said Artibani, a mother of three adults. Star Wars Shoppers grabbed bargains such as a Little Einsteins Rocket marked to $10 from $45 and a Star Wars Clone Wars vehicle half off at $50. Angela Akra, a 33-year-old office manager from Bristol, arrived at 10:50 p.m. and snared a coveted ticket for a $10 Zhu Zhu Pet. Last year, her husband lost his job as a school-bus driver a few days after Black Friday and was out of work for almost a year. Since then, Akra said she’s been making purchases with cash only. Walmart left the doors open overnight at many of its 833 U.S. discount stores to keep crowds from congregating outside. Among the stores staying open was the one in Valley Stream, New York, where Jdimytai Damour, a temporary worker, was fatally trampled on Black Friday last year. Minneapolis-based Target , the second-largest U.S. discount chain, opened an hour earlier than last year. J.C. Penney, based in Plano, Texas, opened at 4 a.m. and is offering wake-up calls to shoppers. Walmart rose 11 cents to $54.96 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading Nov. 25. Target climbed 37 cents to $47.83. Best Buy increased 41 cents to $43.26, and J.C. Penney added $1.41 to $30.64. ‘Screaming Hot’ As a run-up to Black Friday, Richfield, Minnesota-based Best Buy aired TV commercials featuring $197 laptops and $79.99 smart phones. The retailer completed filming Nov. 20, allowing it “to have some screaming hot things for Friday,” Barry Judge , chief marketing officer, said by telephone Nov. 25. Deann Smyers, 53, had waited outside a Best Buy in Houston since yesterday. Smyers, who works at BP Plc, wanted a Samsung refrigerator on offer for almost half its original price. Her son Dustin, 28, was looking for a GPS and a laptop. “We researched the ads, and this just had the things we wanted,” Smyers said. To contact the reporters on this story: Cotten Timberlake in Washington at ctimberlake@bloomberg.net Chris Burritt in Greensboro, North Carolina, at 1348 or cburritt@bloomberg.net ;