The average holiday shopper will spend $749.51 on gifts, food, greeting cards and decorations in 2012, according to a study by BIGinsight for the National Retail Federation.
Holyoke Mall at Ingleside General Manager William Rogalski
HOLYOKE — Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, is shifting into Black Thanksgiving in much of the country with stores opening on Thanksgiving Day.
But once again, Massachusetts shoppers will have to wait for Friday to have their Black Friday. State law prohibits employees from going on duty until the stroke of midnight Thursday into Friday morning.
“So as soon as someone can come in and get the cash registers working, they’ll do it,” said William J. Rogalski, general manager of the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside. “If they can do it at 12:01 a.m., God bless them.”
Of course Black Friday, is so named because that day could put retailers “in the black” or showing a profit for the year. It will be followed by “Small Business Saturday,” a national promotion aimed to get more people doing their holiday gift buying at locally owned mom-and-pops, and then Cyber Monday, the annual busiest day for online shopping as people go back to their offices and their computers following the long weekend.
The average holiday shopper will spend $749.51 on gifts, food, greeting cards and decorations this year, according to a study by BIGinsight for the National Retail Federation. That’ll be up a little from the $704.57 spent per person a year ago. The National Retail Federation is predicting holiday sales to be up 4.1 percent to $586.1 billion.
Massachusetts retailers are predicting sales to rise just 3.5 percent in this state, according to the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.
Retailers have been taking a hit recently. Last week, the U.S. Department of Commerce said retail sales dropped a seasonally adjusted 0.3 percent in October. The drop might have been caused by Superstorm Sandy’s impact on the New York metropolitan area.
In hard times, retailers always push hard to get holiday shoppers into their stores earlier and earlier in the shopping season, said Paul Costanzo chairman of the marketing department at Western New England University. During the Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving earlier from 1939 to 1940 at the request of retailers.
Think of holiday shopping as a "U," Costanzo said. A lot of people shop early. A lot of people shop late with a lull in the middle. If stores can sell a lot early, they don’t have to give even bigger discounts later in November and cut into profits at the risk of being stuck with unsold inventory.
There are people who treat Black Friday as a sport, getting up early and planning their holiday around a shopping excursion, Costanzo said.
"They make plans to meet for lunch," he said. "It's a focus for them."
Holyoke Mall’s Rogalski said most mall stores will be open by 12:30 a.m., including Macy’s for the first time. In past years, early-bird shoppers have come mostly in search of electronics.
“And Macy’s is not all about electronics, it’s a traditional department store with a much more broad product mix,” Rogalski said.
Outside the mall, chains such as Kohl’s and Walmart will be open at about 12:30 a.m., according to publicity material provided by those retailers. In Lee, Bill Wertz, Walmart’s spokesman for Massachusetts, said Walmart’s advertised specials – Apple iPad for $399, a 32-inch TV for $148 and a Blu-ray player $38 – will be available at 1 a.m. in Massachusetts instead of Thursday night in the rest of the country. Unlike other years where people rushed to get bargains, anyone in line at the appointed time is guaranteed either the product or a rain check.
Some Walmart employees around the country plan to walk out Friday to protest working conditions at the stores, according to the Associated Press. It would be an extension of strikes that occurred in October.
Costanzo said consumers are starting to push back on all the Black Friday hype out of sympathy for workers forced to give up their holiday to work and horror at unruly crowds and trampling deaths. “There is a difference between hype and buzz,” he said. “Hype is perceived as coming from the stores. Buzz is more word of mouth.”
He said Small Business Saturday is an attempt to create buzz for small businesses.
Marlies L. Stoddard is the owner of the Nash Gallery on Cottage St. The gallery and other local shops will be hosting "Small Business Saturday" on Nov. 24.
In Easthampton, five small shops – Eastmont Custom Framing, KW Home, Harry King Rug & Home, Nash Gallery, White Square Fine Books & Art – have banded together to help their market as Quintessence Easthampton. They are hosting an event Saturday called Progressive Soiree where customers can visit each shop in succession, get one course of a full meal and shop.
“There is such an awareness, especially in this area, about shopping locally,” Marlies L. Stoddard, owner of Nash Gallery in Easthampton, said. “Especially in Easthampton. We are getting so many young families that really value downtown Easthampton.”