Retailers ready for Black Friday
Nov. 21, 2006
By JOSEPH M. DELEON News-Post Staff
jdeleon@fredericknewspost.com
FREDERICK — Anita Mares, manager at Spencer Gifts, loves working at Francis Scott Key Mall during the holidays. Store employees dress in elf suits and play with unusual toys, such as a parrot perched on a swing that spews insults.
Spencer Gifts is the brightest, flashiest store in the mall, she said Monday. Customers are drawn to the store's novelties and fun Christmas decorations.
No other store in the mall sells poop that hangs from a Christmas tree, she said.
“Working at the mall is awesome during Christmas time because it's all about shopping, being out, the decorations and kids” Ms. Mares said. “Especially at Spencer's, we have a lot of fun Christmas stuff that we get to play with.”
Ms. Mares is among the thousands of retailers who decorate and stockpile merchandise for the biggest shopping day of the year: the Friday after Thanksgiving. It's called Black Friday — so named because that's the day many retailers begin making a profit for the year.
The hardest part of the season for Ms. Mares is making the overwhelming amount of inventory look good in the store. She's spent the past month decorating and cramming 30 percent more merchandise than usual into the store in hopes of record-breaking sales.
“You just have to have a lot of patience and get good at doing tedious things while keeping a smile on your face,” she said. “It's just like Jenga, you just build and hope it comes together in the end.”
Shelly Stanion, marketing director at FSK mall, has been busy preparing the mall to attract customers. Her efforts, including a holiday train display, a visit from St. Nicholas and dazzling decorations, help make the mall a destination, she said.
“The excitement it generates is fantastic, and sometimes you can find the best sales of the year,” she said Monday. “People come early on Friday morning, getting all excited about Christmas and it's a great kickoff to the season — for shoppers, for merchants, for all of us.”
Promotions include free goodie bags for the first 1,000 shoppers, free coffee and donuts and a chance to win a shopping spree — $500 every month for a year. On Black Friday the mall will be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. — some stores will open even earlier, Ms. Stanion said.
“It doesn't surprise me that some will open that early, but it's very encouraging that they expect that much from our shoppers,” she said.
Gadgets speed up shopping
Advances in the technology used to check out customers are helping businesses boost productivity and profits during their busiest season, according to a press release by Wincor Nixdorf USA, a supplier of ATMs and cash registers.
“Consumers are on a mission during the holiday season, and new technologies can make their lives a bit easier during this busy season,” president Brad Waugh said in the release.
According to a recent National Retail Federation survey, nearly 40 percent of consumers will pay for holiday purchases with debit/check cards — an increase of 15 percent compared to last year.
Many retailers have upgraded their credit authorization and checkout system, helping speed customers through the buying process, the release states.
Self-checkout systems are no longer found just in grocery stores. Big-box stores, such as Target, have increased the number of systems by nearly 50 percent because shoppers perceive self-checkout to be faster than other lanes, according to the release.
Using an Automated Postal Center, self-shipping terminals that allow customers to weigh and pay for shipments, should help them avoid long lines at the post office.
“The ability to process transactions quickly, securely and costeffectively is at the heart of all these businesses,” Mr. Waugh said in the release. “Retailers, financial institutions and postal carriers are using new technology to become more efficient and to deliver a better customer experience, and consumers are noticing the difference.”
The Internet strikes back
Technology adds another dimension for retailers during the holidays. It helps shoppers make the most of their time, but a growing number of consumers favor online shopping.
The Internet's answer to Black Friday is Cyber Monday, which falls on Nov. 27 this year. It's the unofficial kickoff to the online holiday shopping season, when retailers target shoppers at work with lunch-hour deals.
The number of people who will shop online for holiday gifts from work is expected to increase to 61 million people this year, up from about 52 million people last year, according to a recent Shop.org survey conducted by BIGresearch.
More than 50 percent of consumers with Internet access at work plan to do some holiday shopping online from work, up from about 44 percent last year, according to the survey.
Young adults with online access at work are the most likely to shop, with about 72 percent of 18-24 year-olds and 66 percent of 25-34 year-olds planning to browse or buy online from the office this holiday season.
“Online retailers typically see huge surges in Web site traffic during traditional lunch hours,” said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org. “Shopping at work can be a great way for many consumers to complete holiday buying without having to worry about sneaky gift recipients looking over their shoulders.”
Brick and mortar retailers, such as Spencer Gifts, are looking to the Internet to supplement sales, Ms. Mares said. Several popular items can only be bought online, such as the glass cover for the popular mystical creations chess set, a fantasy-style chess set with dragon-shaped pieces.
“We have totally revamped our Web site and are offering free shipping to our online customers until Dec. 12,” she said. “I'd like to think we'd still be OK at my store level, but at the company level, we are really opening up a lot of opportunity by going online — if not, they would be missing a lot of sales.”
Ms. Stanion coordinates daily online specials with mall retailers. Customers can print store coupons from the mall's Web site.
She believes no matter how popular online shopping becomes, people will always be drawn to malls.
“We're trying to implement little things like the coupons to make it more accessible to customers and keep them coming,” Ms. Stanion said. “When you visit a mall, you get a little bit of the holiday experience.”