NEW YORK – Retailers ushered in the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season on Friday with larger crowds than last year in a step closer to normalcy, but the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic continues to weigh on the minds of women. companies and buyers.
Buoyed by solid hiring, healthy salary earnings, and substantial savings, customers are returning to stores and splurging on all kinds of items. But the increase has also resulted in limited selection across the board, as suppliers and retailers have been surprised.
Container and truck driver shortages have delayed deliveries as inflation continues to creep. The combination of not finding the right item at the right price, plus a labor shortage that makes it difficult for businesses to respond to customers, could create a less festive atmosphere.
At Macy’s Herald Square store in Manhattan, the shelves were full and shoppers were steadily coming in at 6:30 a.m., half an hour after the doors opened.
Aniva Pawlowski arrived at Macy’s just before the 6 a.m. opening with plans to buy shoes and coats. Shopping on Thanksgiving Day had been a family tradition, but she stayed home last year and only shopped online. Concerns about the shortage led the New Yorker to shop in person and she plans to spend about $ 1,000 on Christmas shopping, similar to previous years, despite concerns about rising gas and food costs.
“Everything is expensive,” he said.
Shoppers are expected to pay an average of 5% to 17% more for toys, clothing, appliances, televisions and other purchases on Black Friday this year compared to last year, according to Aurelien Duthoit, senior advisor to the industry. Allianz Research, with the largest price increases in televisions. That’s because the available discounts will be applied to products that already cost more.
“I think it’s going to be a tough Christmas season,” said Neil Saunders, Managing Director of GlobalData Retail. “It will be a bit frustrating for retailers, consumers and workers. We are going to see long lines. We will see more cluttered stores. We are going to see delays as you pick up orders online. “
Large retailers have been preparing for the holiday season, trying to find solutions for supply chain delays. Some of the largest US retailers are diverting goods to less congested ports, even chartering their own ships.
“We’re deep and we’re ready,” Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette told The Associated Press, noting that inventory levels were up 20% compared to last year. “We are in good shape.”
But at a Best Buy in Denver’s Lone Tree suburb, a buyer couldn’t find what they were looking for.
“The thing I came for is already out of stock both in store and online,” Addi Vanderbeld said as she searched for Apple laptops. “Now I’m looking around just to try to find something that makes the most of getting up at 4am to get down here.”
While Black Friday or Black Friday has a strong grip on the American imagination as a shopping spree day, it has lost stature over the past decade when stores opened on Thanksgiving and shopping moved to Amazon and other online retailers. Stores further diluted the importance of the day by announcing Black Friday sales on more and more days.
The pandemic prompted many retailers to close stores on Thanksgiving and push discounts on their websites, starting in October. That continues this year, although there are also offers in stores.
Still, some experts believe that Black Friday will once again be the busiest shopping day this year.
Crowds at Macy’s were higher in the early hours of its 6 a.m. opening compared to last year, while online sales were strong, CEO Gennette said.
Carol Claridge from Bourne, England, has been coming to New York for Thanksgiving week shopping for 15 years, but skipped it last year due to the pandemic. The United States reopened to travelers from the United Kingdom in early November, when it lifted travel bans due to the pandemic.
“We had to wait a long time to do this,” said Claridge, who was watching beauty gift sets on the first floor of Macy’s with a friend. “We are collecting everything we see that we like. We call it our annual shopping trip. “
For some, this year’s Black Friday was a mild experience. There were about three dozen people in line at Best Buy in the Denver area when the doors opened at 5 a.m., buyer Edmond Kunath said.
“It’s amazing how small the crowd is here this morning,” said Kunath, who was looking for deals on Apple AirPods headphones and a hard drive.
Retail sales in the US, excluding cars and gasoline, from the latter Monday through Sunday are expected to increase 10% from last year and 12% from the 2019 holiday season, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures sales. general retailers on all payment types. Black Friday sales are expected to increase 20% from the previous year as store traffic returns.
Online shopping is still huge and online sales are expected to rise 7% for the week after a whopping 46% increase a year ago when many shoppers stayed home, according to Mastercard. For the holiday season overall, online sales should increase 10% from the previous year, compared with a 33% increase last year, according to the Adobe Digital Economy Index.
For the November-December period, the National Retail Federation, the country’s largest retail trade group, predicts that sales will increase between 8.5% and 10.5%. Holiday sales jumped about 8% in 2020 as shoppers, locked in during the early part of the pandemic, spent their money on pajamas and household items.
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