I’m not sure if reporters Hadley Malcolm and Doug Stanglin have something against Target or what, but these are the only mentions of the place in their rather tame roundup of this year’s somewhat tame Black Friday happenings.
In Vauxhall, N.J., the fog-shrouded parking lot outside a Target was a virtual ghost town just after 6 a.m. Friday with less than two dozens cars. Inside, some aisles had more red-garbed store employees than customers.
“We didn’t know if they were open” said Noel Sweeney of Springfield N.J., who has taken a Black Friday jaunt with her cousin, Dana Migliozzi, every year for the past 15 years. “We come for fun,” she said.
But Sweeney said she appreciated the calm after the likely shopping storm the night before when the earliest bargain hunters prowled the stores. “It’s good because they start the night before,” she says, “so by the time we come, the aisles are clear and there are no crowds.”
On Friday, in Salisbury, Del., Mercedes Young and Ian Columna of Bridgeville, Del., were shopping at Target for their 2-year-old daughter. The couple started the night before at the Walmart in Seaford where they found deals on clothes, movies and other items. “It was crazy last night, but today’s not too bad,” Young said.
In a sign of the mixed messages some consumers are sending retailers, Kim Day, of Gloucester, Va., waited a half-hour in line at a Target in Falls Church to buy a Galaxy Note 5 phone, for a penny. How did she spend her time? Going online to dabble on Amazon, buying everything from Mr. Potato Head to a Fit Bit. “I feel fantastic,” she said.
What a burial. It’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder if Target is going to pull out of the U.S. the way it did Canada.