Despite sometimes sparse crowds, Vancouver business owners call Black Friday success
Shoppers across Vancouver braved a day of nonstop rain to participate in what many retailers described as a successful — albeit somewhat lower-key than usual — Black Friday.
At the Vancouver Mall, most stores opened at 9 a.m. Friday after a previous Thanksgiving-night round of shopping that lasted until midnight. A few of the mall’s anchor stores opened up earlier in the morning, according to mall marketing manager Bree Sanchez, and J.C. Penney ended up staying open all night.
“Black Friday’s really not a thing anymore,” said shopper Nick McRaney on Thursday night. “Now it’s all kind of jammed together.”
A few of the shoppers making their way up and down the mall on Thursday said they were out hunting for specific deals that they’d looked up in advance, but most described the evening simply as a way to stretch their legs and see what they could find, or to get some early Christmas shopping out of the way.
Several shoppers said Thanksgiving-night shopping has become a tradition, in some cases taking the place of their regular Black Friday shopping.
“We usually go out tonight, then we hang out with the family tomorrow,” said Amy Hollis, who was out shopping with her mother and daughter.
The majority of the Thursday night shoppers appeared to be teens or younger adults, with a few families mixed in. Megan Lackey, an employee at Vans, said most of the crowd seemed to be younger customers on the lookout for sales.
“It’s been steady (traffic). There’s been a couple of waves,” she said. “It’s been really fun and easygoing for us, which is nice.”
The mall crowd noticeably shifted toward a more even balance of older and younger shoppers on Friday, along with far more children and families. The mall’s walkways never appeared to be anywhere close to jam-packed, but some of the individual stores did occasionally get crowded, and Sanchez said that the amount of foot traffic appeared to be holding steady throughout the day.
“We’re definitely up over the prior year’s traffic numbers,” she said on Friday. “Ulta this morning had a line all the way to the back.”
Online shopping has been an increasing threat to brick-and-mortar retailers in recent years, but Sanchez said many shopping malls, including the Vancouver Mall, have responded by working to turn themselves into all-day destinations with fun services and experiences.
That strategy was clearly visible on Friday, with visibly high traffic at experience-based mall locations such as the movie theater, the food court and Play Live, a lounge for video and tabletop gaming.
“Friday at this time, it’s not (usually) this busy,” said Play Lounge owner Bhavin Shah.
East of the mall, the scene at the Walmart Supercenter near Orchards was also relatively subdued Friday, with plenty of customers and visible lines in the electronics section but no overwhelming crowds.
That wasn’t the case the night before, however, according to assistant manager Sammi Shaver. The store is open 24 hours, but 6 p.m. Thursday marked the start of its official Black Friday sales period. The line of waiting customers stretched from the check stands to the back of the building, Shaver said, and the store opened every check stand at once to move them all through once 6 p.m. rolled around.
Shaver said the crowd was a bit smaller than in past years, which she attributed in part to online shopping and a growing use of online ordering on Walmart’s website, with in-store pickup options.
Despite the lines in the electronics section, Shaver said the biggest sales appeared to be from the home life section.
“The biggest item that everyone wants right now is the Instant Pot,” she said.
In Hazel Dell, some shoppers at Fred Meyer could be seen walking away with TVs and other big-ticket advertised deals, but many said they simply ventured out to see what they could find.
“We usually come here just because it’s not as crowded as some of the other places,” said Fred Meyer shopper Christi Kunze. “We can’t do the crowds.”
According to Fred Meyer spokesperson Jeffery Temple, the best-selling Black Friday item in most stores tends to be discounted socks, and sure enough, the Hazel Dell store featured a massive display of socks right by the front entrance. For some customers, that was indeed the biggest draw.
“We get socks every year from Fred Meyer,” said shopper Brandy Osborn.
On a regional level, Temple said that his initial impression was that Friday had been a resounding success, matching or even exceeding the foot traffic in recent years, and he was excited to see that customer traffic appeared to be remaining consistent throughout the day rather than tapering off after the morning rush — although, he added, it’ll be a couple weeks before the store has all the necessary data in hand to fully assess how things went.
“Vancouver and everywhere, it’s been really good,” he said on Friday afternoon. “Of course this is anecdotal so far.”
At the nearby Hazel Dell Target, employees said there were long lines waiting outside when the store opened, both at 5 p.m. Thursday night and then again on Friday morning. But Friday proved to be the mellower day with more shoppers taking their time to browse and larger groups of families with small children making their way slowly through the store.
“The line last night was considerably bigger,” store manager Angie Reinhart said on Friday. “Today is steadier so far. Last night I felt like they knew what they came in for; today they’re coming to shop.”
Target’s most popular Black Friday items tend to stay fairly consistent each year, store manager Michael Burton added. This year, as usual, the biggest sellers were electronics and small appliances.
“We mostly came out to buy a Keurig,” said Elley Sinonson, a customer at the Target at Vancouver Plaza.
Some sales appear to be shifting to Target’s online ordering system, Burdon said, but the stores have stayed busy because Target has also seen an increasing number of customers opt for in-store pickup options.
“That’s just been huge for us,” he said. “It’s been growing every year.”
