Shoppers snatch bargains but little else

This Black Friday looked like all the others: throngs carrying shopping bags.

The $200 computers, $59 GPS units and the $3 appliances disappeared in minutes. It's what remained on the shelves that might spell big trouble for retailers.

Kay Miller came to the mall focused.

"We're buying the bargains," said Miller, a Louisburg resident who was shopping with friend Jean Edwards at Crabtree Valley Mall. "I got two items that are $49 each for $19 each."

But that's all she bought, and that's a problem for retailers who, after a year of declining sales need a good holiday season. Nor does it bode well for the greater economy, which relies on consumer spending for two-thirds of its activity.

Stores have long used "doorbuster" deals to entice shoppers in the wee hours on the Friday after Thanksgiving. The money lost on such deals is supposed to be made up by everything else shoppers load into their carts. This year, some stores opened on Thanksgiving night, others opened at 4 a.m. with discounts and giveaways. But shoppers, for the most part, were bypassing extra purchases and walking out empty-handed if they couldn't find what they wanted.

"Forty-one percent of consumers are concerned about their jobs, and those people aren't buying anything unless it's an essential item," said Britt Beemer, a retail analyst and founder of America's Research Group in Charleston, S.C. "Shoppers told us before this weekend that they were going to have a list and they were going to buy what was on the list, and if it wasn't on the list they weren't going to buy it. There wasn't anything the retailer could do to entice them to spend more."

'More picky this year'

Frances Byrd stood in line at the Old Navy in Raleigh's Poyner Place shopping center for an hour and a half to check out with an armful of clothing for her grandchildren.

A veteran of Black Friday shopping, Byrd said she is spending about 20 percent less on Christmas gifts this year and is looking for higher discounts. At minimum, items need to be 20 percent off for her to buy them. And a discount of 40 percent or 50 percent is a lot more likely to entice her.

"The sales are out there, but I'm more picky this year," said Byrd, who works for Progress Energy and lives in Wendell. "I don't want to be wasteful. We have limited resources."

People with a similar mindset flocked to Toys R Us, which launched a huge weekend toy sale and opened at midnight.

By 9 a.m., lines were still 40 people deep but moving quickly in Cary's Toys 'R Us store in the Crossroads shopping center. Parking in front of the store was catch as catch can, but other stores in the expansive shopping center didn't seem to have the same crowds.

Kristy Rodriguez decided to brave the crowds with her two sons, ages 4 and 2, in order to save on the shipping costs from buying online. She picked a Thomas the Tank Engine and paid in cash, a practice she adopted this year in light of the shaky economy.

"I'll pay for it once and not have to get a bill and pay for it again," she said.

In an effort to maximize sales, some retailers may have actually dampened the Black Friday frenzy by rolling out big discounts early. Others have turned their Black Friday sales into daylong or weekend-long events with deals continuing Saturday and Sunday.

Still, some shoppers didn't want to risk items selling out.

Jacqueline Powell said she has never before shopped on Black Friday, but this year she's trying to stretch her budget. In January, Powell's husband was laid off and spent three weeks finding a new job. The incident scared the Powells into reconsidering the way they pay for things.

"In the past, we would have just said, 'Oh, let's do it' and not even thought about how to pay for it," she said. "Now we're saying, 'Here's our absolute limit and if we can't afford it, then we don't buy it.'"

That's not to say that everyone resisted an impulse buy. Tara Roach was out shopping for her family, including her 19-month-old daughter, when she ran across a dual screen mobile DVD player priced at $88.

"For the things that I was looking for this year, there didn't seem to be much on sale," said Roach, from Raleigh. "But this I couldn't pass up."

Plenty of shoppers

The bustling stores this weekend are a refreshing change for retailers and shopping center owners, who have survived a year of store closings, slumping sales and slow foot traffic.

At The Streets at Southpoint in Durham, there were actually more shoppers than there were last year, said general manager Pat Anderson. And, more importantly, the stream of shoppers remained steady throughout the day.

"This year stores are doing special deals all day long," he said. "Some even have special afternoon deals to help drive traffic. Last year, it was gift with sales [promotions] and last year we seemed to trail off after 2 p.m."

That's good for retailers, but the uptick in foot traffic is valuable only if the people actually start purchasing more than the super bargains.

"We are small local businesses and we have to do over and beyond the call of duty in order to stay open," said Sameer Pawa, owner of the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory stores in Triangle Town Center and Brier Creek. "If I don't work, I don't eat ... but if people don't have heat in their homes they're not going to be eating my product."

In order to get shoppers to budge, retailers may have to discount more heavily than they want to, said analyst Beemer.

"Most retailers I talk to will go to 50 percent off and maybe 60 percent the week before Christmas," he said. "I think they need to think about 60 and 70 percent. ... Shoppers came with a list and they checked it twice, but this year they weren't going to be naughty."

Staff writer Sarah Ovaska contributed to this story.

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