Black Friday Shoppers Seek Early Deals at Cape Cod Retailers

CCB MEDIA PHOTO:
The parking lots at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis were already full by 7:30 a.m. Friday as shoppers sought early bargains

HYANNIS – The holiday shopping season kicked off early Friday on Cape Cod, with several stores opening in the middle of the night to catch the first wave of Black Friday bargain-hunters.

The doors swung open at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis at midnight for those looking to scoop up deals on items ranging from electronics to clothing.

“We’re very optimistic for a busy Black Friday and holiday shopping season. Our retailers once again are highly promotional and there’s a shorter shopping season this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we expect to be busy,” said mall manager Adra Cohen.

An organization representing Bay State merchants is also hopeful about the holiday season.

The Retailers Association of Massachusetts is forecasting a 6.5 percent increase in store sales during the months of November and December. That prediction was based on a survey of 3,500 members of the trade group.

Massachusetts retailers posted a 3.4 percent increase in holiday sales last year, and there have been five consecutive year-over-year gains during the period.

The association’s president, Jon Hurst, said the 2015 forecast is fueled by high levels of consumer confidence, lower unemployment and the lowest gas prices in years.

Some shoppers decided to stay home with families for the holiday and start their shopping on Friday instead.

Joan Sherry, a New York who is visiting the Cape for Thanksgiving said she wasn’t shopping on Thanksgiving.

“I don’t believe that people should be away from their families on Thanksgiving to be shopping,” said Sherry. “On Friday, I’m out there at like six o’clock in the morning, but I don’t like being trampled either. Depends on what I need to get and what I don’t need to get.”

At the Sears Hometown store in Orleans, people were trickling in around 5 a.m. A female shopper who didn’t want to give her name said she hit the stores early and planned to continue shopping throughout the day.

“I go home, get more coffee, then I’m going to Old Navy, Macy’s and might hit K-Mart,” she said.

Outside the Best Buy at the Cape Cod Mall, Jimmy, a shopper who took the 6 a.m. boat from Martha’s Vineyard, said it was worth the early-morning trip to get some great deals. “I came over and I just shopped. I ordered over the phone, I got my gift, I came over and this is great,” he said.

According to Barnstable Police, about 400 people were lined up outside the Best Buy around midnight, waiting patiently for the doors to open.

“I got here at 8 p.m. last night. We had a few people in line, the line grew to over 400 by 1 a.m. when the doors opened, but everything was neat and orderly,” said Officer Jack Corbett. In past years, violence has broken out in other parts of the country as shoppers jockeyed for position in lines and battled over items.

Local businesses on the Cape are seeing an increase in business on Black Friday.

Rick Penn, President of Puritan Cape Cod in Hyannis said they’re ready for the holiday season.

“We look at it as the weekend kind of kicks off the holiday season,” said Penn. “Obviously the holiday season is an important part of our year’s business, but business has been very strong and we remain very optimistic over the next 45 days.”

If the beginning of the holiday season is any indication, it could be a merry mobile Christmas for shoppers.

For the first time, there’s expected to be more people visiting retailers’ web sites through their smartphones than on desktop computers or tablets during the first weekend of the holiday shopping season that begins on Thanksgiving Day.

Mobile traffic during the five-day start to what is typically the busiest shopping period of the year is expected to reach 56.9 percent of total traffic, up from 48.5 percent last year, according to IBM Watson.

And even though everyone who “window shops” on their phones isn’t going to buy, mobile sales are jumping too. Mobile sales are expected to account for 36.1 percent of online sales, up from 27 percent last year, according to IBM Watson Trend.

The bumps in traffic and sales come as retailers try to make the mobile shopping experience easier by improving their mobile apps and adding coupons and other deals.

Shoppers also have gotten more comfortable browsing retailers’ web sites as smartphone screen sizes have gotten bigger, making it easier for them to see photos of the items they want to buy. Digital wallets and apps that let shoppers store payment information are helping too.

“It’s very convenient,” said Seth Reineke, 25, an insurance worker from Iowa City, Iowa, who plans to peruse Amazon’s weekend deals from his phone. “It allows me to keep track of time-sensitive sales without being tied to a computer or having to leave a holiday event or get-together.”

Overall spending this season is expected to be somewhat muted. The National Retail Federation, a trade group for storeowners, expects industry-wide sales to be up 3.7 percent in November and December, less than the 4.1 percent of last year’s holiday season. That’s a smaller increase than Massachusetts retailers are expecting.

CCB MEDIA PHOTO:
Shoppers walk into the Toys ‘R Us in Hyannis early Friday morning

Online spending figures are stronger. Forrester predicts online sales will rise 11 percent to $95 billion. And mobile sales are becoming a bigger piece of that pie. Forrester expects them to account for 35 percent of e-commerce this year and 49 percent in five years. That compares to 29 percent in 2014.

Adobe, which measures 80 percent of online sales from the top 100 U.S. retailers, predicts 40 to 45 percent of all retail traffic during November and December will come from mobile devices, up from 37 percent last year. Mobile sales are expected to total 20 to 25 percent of total online sales, up from 16 percent last year.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, expects that 75 percent of U.S. traffic to its website will come from mobile devices this holiday shopping season. That’s up from 50 percent two years ago. Likewise, eBay says it expects mobile sales during the holidays will be “significantly” higher than the 41 percent mobile sales made up of total revenue in the third quarter.

Thanksgiving and the day after the holiday known as Black Friday are expected to be particularly mobile-friendly shopping dates because people can use their phones to take advantage of limited-time offers wherever they may be. Adobe predicts mobile will drive the majority of shopping traffic, 51 percent, for the first time on Thanksgiving Day.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to do ‘shopping under the table’ on Thanksgiving Day,” said Tamara Gaffney, director of Adobe Digital Index. “In between cooking, watching football and in general hanging around family and friends, there’s down time to glance at the iPad and smartphone and do some shopping.”

Take Danyell Taylor, 34, a writer in Washington, D.C. who likes the “easy access” of smartphone shopping. Taylor plans to start looking for holiday deals on Wednesday and continuing through the weekend, specifically for Converse shoes and Kate Spade home accessories.

“I’m going to sit on my couch with my phone and my laptop and buy from there,” she says. “I don’t plan on going into the store at all.”

Mobile shopping still has its problems, including security concerns, sluggish apps and hard-to-navigate mobile web sites. And much of mobile traffic doesn’t translate into sales.

But for shoppers, the convenience factor is hard to beat, says Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

“While retailers may lament their low conversion rates and slow download speeds on mobile devices, shoppers still keep shopping on those devices,” Mulpuru says, adding that shoppers “appear to have greater tolerance for imperfection, much like in the early days of desktop.”

Jill Markiewicz, 38, a personal shopper in New York, says she shops frequently on her iPhone 6s on Saks Fifth Ave and J.Crew’s mobile web sites.

“I’m typically on foot running around a lot … don’t get a whole lot of desk time,” Markiewicz says. “You can go from email to checkout cart in a matter of minutes.”

While many like the convenience of mobile shopping, others look forward to same-day delivery. But who wants to pay for it?

The logistics and costs of same-day delivery — the fuel, labor, infrastructure and other costs — has been a difficult challenge to surmount.

This year, Amazon has been making an aggressive push to offer same-day delivery to people who’ve paid its $99 fee for Prime loyalty club membership. That service is now available in 23 metro areas. And where Amazon goes, other retailers must follow.

Providing hassle-free, same-day delivery has been a quixotic quest for retailers for more than a decade but with better technology, more retailers are taking on the challenge.

The holiday season will be a test for the new services.

And Black Friday is just the beginning of what will be weeks of shopping between now and Christmas. Get ready for the stretched version of the Cyber Monday online sales wars.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is making all of its “Cyber Monday” online discounts available on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The discounts will be offered starting at 8 p.m Eastern time.

A year ago, the nation’s largest retailer only offered a sneak peak of about 20 deals on the evening before what’s considered the biggest online sales day of the year. It’s also quadrupling the assortment of deals to 2,000.

Meanwhile, Target announced that for the first time it will be offering a 15 percent site-wide discount on Cyber Monday. It will also have an extra 75 heavily discounted items on that day that include 50 percent off kids’ cameras and 50 percent off select headphones.

Fernando Madeira, president and CEO of Walmart.com, tells The Associated Press the company wants to make it easier for customers to get ahead of Cyber Monday and save on the top selling gifts. Among some of the deals: an LG 65-inch HDTV for $799, a $500 savings, and an Air Hogs video drone for $75, a $34 savings. Madeira says, “We are simplifying the experience.”

By MATT PITTA, MATT MCCARTHY, MIKE DEFINA, JUSTIN SAUNDERS and material from THE ASSOCIATED PRESS