Is Black Friday still popular in 2024?
NEW YORK - U.S. retailers offered giveaways and steep discounts on Black Friday to entice shoppers, aiming to maintain the day’s status as the official start of the holiday shopping season.
Department stores, malls, and businesses of all sizes used the event to boost foot traffic and energize consumers, especially as many turn to online shopping for their purchases.
FOX 5 New York said Friday that shoppers hit the stores early in the morning to take advantage of the Black Friday deals.
"Very busy, very packed," FOX 5 reporter Hayley Fixler said.
FILE: Black Friday shoppers on November 25, 2022 at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. (Credit: Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune via Getty Images)
At Macy’s Herald Square in Manhattan, a steady stream of shoppers early Friday found some shoes and handbags priced half-off, special occasion dresses marked down by 30%, and 60% off the store's luxury bedding brand.
According to retail technology company Sensormatic Solutions, enough consumers still enjoy holiday shopping in person that Black Friday remains the biggest day of the year for retail foot traffic in the country.
According to the National Retail Federation, 184 million people were expected to be shopping between Thanksgiving through Monday this year – up 2 million from last year.
Mall operators said they were seeing higher customer traffic than last year.
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Retailers are even more under the gun to get shoppers in to buy early and in bulk since there are five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.
There were some hit items that stirred the old Black Friday mania.
Some Target shoppers lined up as early as 11:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving evening to await the 6 a.m. opening and get their hands on an exclusive book devoted to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and a bonus edition of her "The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology" album.
Target said the exclusives would only be available in stores on Black Friday and customers could buy them online starting Saturday. Many locations sold out of their supply.
Despite this, the huge crowds of Black Fridays past never returned after the COVID-19 pandemic. Early Friday morning, a Walmart in Germantown, Maryland, had only half of the parking spots filled. Some shoppers were returning items or buying groceries.
Michael Brown, a partner at global strategy and management consulting firm Kearney, saw no lines at the Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey, 10 minutes before the 7 a.m. opening.
"It’s not the old Black Friday that we used to know," he said.