Black Friday scene: A platoon of nieces, philosophy at Menards and a snake named Gladys
Shortly before 1100 hours Friday, Diana Roberson, World's Greatest Aunt, marshaled a platoon of nieces for the day's expedition.
Rendezvous point: Sperry / Ugg boot department, Macy's, Mayfair Mall.
Equipment: Purses, credit cards, sensible shoes.
Objective: Shopping.
Every Black Friday for at least a decade, Roberson has done this — gathered as many of her 12 nieces as might be so inclined and led them through the shopper-filled aisles of Macy's and all the other stores that look to this day to jump-start their most important sales period of the year.
Roberson, of Wauwatosa, has no daughters of her own but has a large extended family and the gentle touch of a favorite aunt, and this year, her niece brigade numbered 10 — Taylor, Raylin, Sarah, Caroline, Kate, Anna, Mary, Kayla, Emma and Olivia.
“They stay overnight at my house on Thanksgiving eve, we have breakfast (cinnamon rolls, eggs, fruit) and then we come to the mall," Roberson said. "And shop.”
And spend family time together, a key element of what has become an unofficial American holiday.
While it is too early to say how this Black Friday will stack up against past years, thousands were out hitting the stores across the Milwaukee area.
By 6 a.m., a couple of hundred people were outside Menards on Miller Park Way waiting to swarm inside for deals like a $1.48 fleece blanket or a $6.99 aromatherapy stuffed animal. By late morning, both Mayfair and Southridge, the region's largest malls, were buzzing.
At Mayfair, the line for the women's restroom extended into the hallway. At the recently opened Dick's Sporting Goods at Southridge, more than 30 people were queued up at the registers, waiting about 15 minutes to check out.
It was Abby Forst's first visit to Dick's, which has filled part of the Southridge space left vacant by Sears, and she pronounced it to be quite nice. Forst, of Milwaukee, was shopping with her mother, Pat Griffith; precocious daughter, Margaret; and Margaret's new stuffed cobra, Gladys — purchased earlier Friday in the buy-one-toy, get-another-half-price sale at Barnes & Noble.
Margaret, who first said she was 8 years old and then corrected herself — "eight and a half " — is a third-grader at Hales Corners Elementary School and a self-proclaimed snake expert, and Gladys figures to be an important addition at her house.
“I have an, actually, a male king cobra and she’s a female," Margaret said of the reptile she cuddled, "and they’re gonna mate."
Looming over the scene for brick-and-mortar retailers, however, was the continuing migration to online shopping — possibly a factor contributing to the half-empty parking lots at the Walmart at 3355 S. 27th St. shortly after 8 a.m., and the Target at 12725 W. Blue Mound Road a little after 10 a.m.
Nationwide online purchases as of mid-morning totaled $643 million, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks visits to 80 of the country's top 100 online retailers. That's an increase of 27.8 percent from a year ago, and if anything close to that pace holds up through Christmas it will mean online holiday shopping will continue to swell. The National Retail Federation estimates that total holiday spending this year will rise by 4.3 percent to 4.8 percent.
Record day for Kohl's
Online is what Kohl's CEO Michelle Gass wanted to talk about Friday morning. The Menomonee Falls-based firm, which operates more than 1,150 departments stores nationwide but also has been positioning itself as an "omnichannel" retailer, kicked off its online doorbusters just after midnight Thursday.
The result, Gass said, was a record Thanksgiving day for digital sales, with 80 percent of traffic coming from mobile devices, and a record day for people buying online and picking up their purchases in stores. While she declined to offer detailed comparisons with past years' online sales, "just say we were very pleased," Gass said.
In an email statement, Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, said he expects spending at physical stores to rise 1.9 percent this year, far less than the online rate of increase but still strong compared with the last five years.
One retailer that did not appear to be hurting from online competition Friday was Eau Claire-based Menards. At 8:30 a.m., the lot at the 2101 Miller Park Way store was so jammed that people were parking on the edge of the driveway leading to the store.
Inside, in a main aisle packed with shoppers snapping up hooded sweatshirts ($12.44), women's microfiber socks (99 cents) and sherpa slippers ($1.97), Bonnie Zarr, 58, of Milwaukee, had a cart heaped with cookie sheets, fleece tops and lots of things for her two dogs, Frank and Finn.
"They like squeaky toys," Zarr said. "(And) they've got a lot of squeaky toys here. ... And the (dog) beds are like $3 so I can put them all over the house and they can lay there.”
Menards has been a regular Black Friday stop for Zarr for 10 years or so, and it's always bustling, she said.
“Usually there’s a lot of free stuff," she said. "This year there’s nothing really free, but this is pretty cheap — I mean, like a fleece shirt for $7.99. You can’t beat that.”
An aisle over, Bobbi and Rosa, friends since high school 40 years ago, were shopping and philosophizing. Rosa, it seems, had persuaded Bobbi — they didn't want their last names published — to make a Black Friday stop at Menard's despite Bobbi's hesitation.
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“I just told her nobody needs anything anyway so why are we stopping?" Bobbi said. "For me, why am I stopping here? I mean (no one) really needs anything.”
But her 21-year-old son can use laundry detergent and razors and such, so Bobbi picked some up, and between she and Rosa they were well on their way to filling one of those heavy carts people use to roll lumber and building materials from store to pickup truck.
Bottom line: They were buying lots of stuff on this Black Friday, and so were lots of other folks.
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