USA: U.S. retail "Black Friday" expected to possibly be the best in years.

This year's "Black Friday" could be the strongest opening to the holiday shopping season in years, if the droves of Americans eager to exploit specials sales on Friday (November 24) are any guide. Consumers think of the Friday after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday as the first day of the all-important holiday shopping season and a time to snag bargains, freebies and sales. The Thanksgiving weekend accounts for 9 to 10 percent of holiday sales, according to Dana Telsey, analyst and founder of independent research firm Telsey Group. At the international flagship store of "Toys R Us" at Times Square, store representatives said that there were avid shoppers in line as early as five in the morning. A few hours later, the store was full of shoppers, avidly looking for discounts and bargains. "This is one of the most important shopping days of the year. There are several days that are approximately the same size left between now and Christmas. Toys is a very seasonal business and so his period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is almost a third of our sales of the year, so it is a very important period for us," said Gerald Storch, CEO, Toys "R" Us. Some of the best-selling toys at the store included Pink Nitro Notebook by VTech, Dora's Talking Cash Register by Fisher-Price and "T.M.X." Elmo, also by Fisher-Price. While a sign at the entrance of the toys store said that the "T.M.X." Elmo was out of stock and that customers should call the store to find out when it might be available again, Storch emphasized that they did and would continue to have good stocks of the toy. "One of the hottest toys this season is T.M.X. Elmo and we have shipments of T.M.X. Elmo coming frequently throughout this season. In fact, we had thousands of them this morning and we'll have thousands more every week, between now and Christmas. So, we keep getting more and more shipments and if you find a hot toy like T.M.X. Elmo anywhere, it will be at Toys "R" Us," said Storch. Another hot-seller at Toys "R" Us was Nintendo's new video game console, Wii. According to one of the shoppers at the store, Veronica Leonardi, visiting New York from Argentina, she couldn't get a Wii even though she was there early. "I came with two friends. I was in Nintendo World and here before at five thirty waiting for the Wii to come out. They didn't have any more, sold out kind of, so am sorry about it," said Leonardi. Another early morning shopper at Toys "R" Us explained the irresistible draw of Black Friday. "I think this is the start of the Christmas season and it makes us feel more like Christmas. So, we probably get the sales the same all the way through but we enjoy coming out today because it gets you in the Christmas spirit," said Lisa Violette, visiting New York from Virginia. At the flagship Macy's Department store at New York, shoppers seemed frenetic as well. Terry Lundgren, chief executive of Federated Department Stores Inc. told Reuters he arrived at the store at 5:30 a.m. to find lines wrapped completely around the building, which takes up a whole city block. Lundgren said that he had been coming down to the store for many years at the same time on this particular day and he thought this was the largest crowd he'd seen in years, adding that the sunny and cold weather was good for shopping, especially for coats and cashmere sweaters. "I do think there's been a consistency of spending and certainly at the higher end of the business, there's been a consistent positive response from consumers. They are spending at the higher end. That includes the high end of the Macy's stores as well and they're going after brands. So, that is very different from what's happened in the last year in particular. So, I think that trend should continue," said Lundgren. Lundgren said he felt "really good" about the start of the holiday shopping season, and that he was confident the company would deliver on its target of same-store sales for the fourth quarter rising 3 percent to 5 percent, despite some softness in sales of home decor items. Macy's, which like many stores opened earlier than usual, offered special morning deals, such as a five-piece luggage set for 49.99 U.S. dollars and a one-carat diamond circle pendant for less than 100 USD. Retailers this year used special promotions and longer hours, hoping they could turn over more parking spaces and attract shoppers of different ages with different sleep needs. Marshal Cohen, Chief Analyst at the NPD Group believes that 2006 holiday season sales will be better than last year. He expects a 3.5-4% increase from store sales during the same period last year. Cohen pointed out that some of the big differences this year include the hours that the retailers are going to be open, products that they're going to be discounting, the time at which they will be discounting. Cohen thinks though that in term of the discount amounts, they are pretty much the same as last year. He also said that on line shopping will get bigger and bigger by the year. Explaining the positive consumer spending on Black Friday this year and possibly also going ahead in the holiday season, Cohen said, "What's happening this year, the consumer doesn't have as many distractions as we've seen during the course of the year. Gas prices have come down. While gas prices really don't sway the consumer from spending, as we saw they were still spending even when prices were higher, they feel good. There's not a lot of news out there telling the consumer - hey, hold back. In fact, it's the opposite. We're seeing a lot of news about people who were waiting on line a thousand long, to sit there and get to be one of the first ones into the store. We are hearing a lot of talk about how shopping is good, the consumer is feeling confident. The house values are holding up, so it's not as if the consumer is feeling a big strain." Helping boost shopper enthusiasm, gasoline prices have dropped for 12 of the last 13 weeks, even as existing-home sales have declined 14.2 percent, according to the National Association of Realtors. Standard & Poor's retail group expects a 4.5 percent increase in holiday retail sales for the traditional November-to-December period. The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday because it once marked the day when many retailers turned a profit -- went into the black -- for the year. It used to be thought the busiest shopping day of the year, but shoppers looking for last-minute gifts have turned the Saturday before Christmas into the busiest shopping day.

ITN Source | November 26, 2006

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