Fresno shoppers see a calmer, gentler Black Friday after COVID-19 dimmed 2020 season
A year after COVID-19 cast a pall over 2020’s Black Friday post-Thanksgiving shopping day, shoppers in Fresno were greeted this year by a calmer, less-frenzied scene than before the coronavirus pandemic.
Shopping center parking lots weren’t as crowded, lines weren’t as long and, at some big-box retailers and other stores, many people were heading out to their cars with carts that were significantly less laden with doorbuster deals than in years past.
After hunkering down for last year’s day-after-Thanksgiving shopping, some shoppers said Friday seemed like a downright pleasant and comfortable experience.
“It’s nice just to get back out and do some shopping,” said Prisma Valencia of Fresno, who with her daughters were roaming the Fig Garden Village shopping center in northwest Fresno. “We weren’t able to do much last year because of COVID. … So it’s good to get back into the swing of the tradition.”
Indeed, the National Retail Federation was predicting that the Thanksgiving weekend – from Thursday through Cyber Monday – would be part of a record-breaking holiday shopping season nationwide.
“Black Friday stopped being a one-day event years ago, and this year some consumers started shopping for Christmas as early as Halloween,” said Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation.
A recent survey by the NRF and Prosper Insights & Analytics indicated that in the five days from Thanksgiving Day through Monday as many as 2 million more people would be shopping than over the 2020 Black Friday weekend. Almost two-thirds of holiday shoppers responding to the survey said they planned to shop in person on Black Friday, up from about 51% a year ago.
Not all of that shopping, however, was likely to happen at brick-and-mortar stores.
“I’ve always done a lot of online shopping,” Valencia said. “But we’re finding some really good deals today.”
Also at Fig Garden Village, Chase Sutherland and Jennifer Nguyen were enjoying a sunny morning and noting it was “not as crazy” as past Black Fridays.
“It seems a lot slower; it just seems like a normal day,” Sutherland said as the couple sat on a bench and sipped coffee. “We just wanted to be out and around, and not be cooped up all day.”
“I’m not a big shopper regardless,” Nguyen said. “Black Friday is really the only time I do shopping for Christmas.”
Sutherland and Nguyen said they thought the lingering threat of COVID coupled with the ease of online shopping has combined to thin the herd when it comes to the frenzy of prior Black Fridays. “I think some people still don’t want to go out,” Nguyen said.
A few miles to the north, at the sprawling River Park shopping center in northeast Fresno, several shoppers said they, too, were happy to be back out to revive a tradition of Black Friday shopping.
The nationwide NRF survey revealed that Black Friday deals that are “too good to pass up” were the top reason for heading to stores for 58% of people, while 28% said tradition was their motivation.
Some hearty souls lined up overnight or early in the morning at the Best Buy electronics store before it opened at 5 a.m., or in front of the nearby Target department store for its 7 a.m. opening. Lines at each store included as many as 200 people when they opened.
A little later in the morning, the lines outside the doors at the two big-box stores were non-existent, and things had the appearance of a more normal shopping day.
Liz and Paul Fragoza of Nevada and Paul’s cousin, David Andrade and his wife Ariana of Fresno, started their day at River Park at about 7:30 a.m. at Starbucks to caffeine up before making their way to Target. “It’s a tradition for me,” Liz Fragoza said. “It’s fun.” But, she added, it’s been years since she joined the hard-core Black Friday shoppers who line up in the wee hours waiting for stores to open their doors for extra-special prices.
Ariana Andrade said she likes to see what kind of deals are being offered by stores, but added that so far she had not really found any really good prices on things she wants.
Amin Motameni and his two sons, in Fresno from Orange County to visit relatives, left River Park’s Target store with only a Microsoft XBox video game console – what the NRF lists in its Top 10 toys for the 2021 holiday season – in their shopping bag, “and it was not on a Black Friday special,” Motameni said.
He added that in addition to the pandemic and online shopping taking some of the wind out of Black Friday, “it’s been more difficult to find things because of supply chain challenges” related not only to COVID-19, but a worldwide shortage of computer microchips that are components of so many products.
At the other end of River Park, festooned with smaller shops, “I feel like it’s a less hectic vibe,” said Anna Kern of Fresno, shopping with her friend Olivia Lazaro. “It’s definitely not as crazy, the lines are manageable, and we even found a parking spot close to the stores.”
Lazaro, who also lives in Fresno, said the “mellow” atmosphere was a by-product of the COVID-19 pandemic – not fear of getting out into a crowed, but “maybe people realize after COVID that it’s not about stuff, or material things; that’s what I’m trying to teach my kids.”
Kern added that some people may also simply not have money to shop this year if they’ve been affected by the pandemic, and have to make choices between spending money on rent or groceries or holiday shopping.
It wasn’t “doorbuster” deals or shopping traditions that drew Kim and Tim Poston of Fresno and their two young sons to River Park on Friday. Instead, it was a chance to see Santa Claus arrive on a fire engine that motivated the family.
“It’s so calm right now,” Tim Poston said. “We used to love to do Black Friday before we had the kids, and this is definitely a change from years before.”
Kim Poston said that when she worked at Uncle Harry’s, a bagel shop in the shopping center, she used to see people lining up hours before the big-box retailers like Target or Best Buy opened for the major sales. “I knew I didn’t want to be part of the ‘doorbuster’ frenzy,” she said.
The couple said they expected to do some in-person shopping after the kids had a chance to see Santa. But both said most of their holiday shopping has been or will be online this year, “especially with COVID,” Kim Poston said.
This story was originally published November 26, 2021 at 2:17 PM.
