NEW YORK: Frenzied shoppers across the United States joined the Black Friday rush for bargains, the kick-off to the crucial holiday shopping season being closely watched amid a lackluster economy.
Television images showed berserk buyers charging through doors as stores opened up for Black Friday sales on the day after the Thanksgiving holiday.
Some stores opened at midnight, while others such as big-box retailers Walmart and Target jumped the gun, opening on Thanksgiving night and carving into the family-centered holiday.
At 11:00 p.m. Thursday, scores of people were lined up outside a Best Buy store electronics store waiting for its midnight opening.
Phyllis Loges, 52, and her daughter had already waited four hours. “I want to buy a home cinema with TV and sound system,” she said, adding that the doorbuster sale price was $1,500, instead of normal prices around $3,500.
In New York City, the well-known Macy’s flagship department store was a destination for many. Macy’s chief executive Terry Lundgren was on the scene as it opened at midnight.
“I swear I was standing there for 18 to 20 minutes, and the lines of incoming traffic never stopped,” he told NBC. “People are definitely shopping and kicking off the shopping on Black Friday.”
Black Friday was a boon for tourists, too. At 7:00 a.m. Friday, Abdul Albudikhi, a 22-year-old from Saudi Arabia, left a Hollister clothing store on Fifth Avenue, his arms laden with shopping bags after shopping since midnight.
“I bought jeans, shoes, a present for my girlfriend, one for my father,” he said.
Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, said it had its “best ever” Black Friday, with larger crowds than last year.
Meanwhile, disgruntled Walmart workers mounted strikes and protests across the country seeking better pay and benefits.
“There is going to be an impact,” employee William Fletcher told MSNBC. “The point isn’t so much to hurt Walmart as much as it is to get them to listen to us and appreciate the work we do.”
Some competitive shoppers lost their cool as they tussled over items or staked out their spots in line.
According to the San Antonio Express News website, one man pulled a gun on another who punched him in the face while the two were waiting in line outside a Sears store late Thursday.
Black Friday starts the year-end holiday shopping season that often tips retailers out of the red and into the black for the year.
But the day’s impact on balance sheets is starting to wane, as more and more stores try to reel in customers on Thursday, even if it means that their employees have to forego the traditional Thanksgiving feast.
A decade ago, it would have been impossible to find a single store open on Thanksgiving along New York’s big shopping arteries such as Broadway.
But on Thursday, as for the past several years, nearly all the stores were open where Broadway traverses the SoHo neighborhood of lower Manhattan.
Despite a still-struggling economy, Macy’s Lundgren seemed upbeat about prospects for the rest of the year, although he acknowledged that November would likely be “a little bit softer” than retailers might like.
The growth of 24/7 online sales is another challenge to brick-and-mortar shopping.
While the National Retail Federation is expecting a 4.1 percent rise in holiday sales this year compared with 2011, data tracker comScore is projecting a jump of 15-18 percent in online purchases.
The NRF projects fewer shoppers in stores and online on Black Friday and the weekend: 147 million, down 3 percent from a year ago.
“Black Friday’s on a crash course with irrelevance. Before long, all we’re going to be talking about is Cyber Monday,” said Louis Banese at Wall Street Daily.
Peter Morici, an economics professor at the University of Maryland, said that Black Friday remains important for retail sales, a big part of the consumer spending that powers about 70 percent of US economic growth.
But he warned that Americans remain cautious amid a fragile recovery.
“If the weekend numbers are not good, the holiday season won’t be good.”
Frenzied shoppers swarm US stores on Black Friday
Frenzied shoppers swarm US stores on Black Friday
Four more US deportees arrive in Eswatini: lawyer, official
- Two of the newly arrived deportees are from Somalia, one from Tanzania and one from Sudan
- The four arrived at the maximum-security Matsapha Correctional Center
MBABANE, Eswatini: Four more men deported from the United States under Washington’s scheme to expel undocumented migrants have arrived in the southern African kingdom of Eswatini, a lawyer and a prison official said Thursday.
The tiny country took in 15 men last year as part of US deals with several African nations for them to accept migrants under a third-country deportation program that has been widely criticized by rights groups.
Two of the newly arrived deportees are from Somalia, one from Tanzania and one from Sudan, US-based migration lawyer Alma David, who represents some of the other detainees, told AFP.
The four arrived at the maximum-security Matsapha Correctional Center, outside the capital, late Wednesday, an officer said on condition of anonymity.
“They are in perfect health,” the officer told AFP. “They are currently being oriented by the social welfare and health departments.”
The facility was preparing to receive around 140 more deportees, the official said.
According to a document revealed by Human Rights Watch in September and seen by AFP, Eswatini agreed to take 160 deportees in exchange for funds to build its border and migration management capacity.
Eswatini, Africa’s last absolute monarchy, confirmed in November that it had received around $5.1 million from the United States to accept the deportees.
Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan have also accepted US deportees. Cameroon reportedly received 17 African nationals deported from the United States this year.
Eswatini authorities say they are only holding the deportees while arrangements are finalized for their repatriation.
One of the men sent to Eswatini, a 62-year-old Jamaican who had reportedly completed a murder sentence in the United States, was sent back to the Caribbean island nation in September.
Lawyers and civil society groups in Eswatini have gone to court to challenge the legality of the detentions, arguing that the deportees are being held “indefinitely” without charges.
