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Hernando Today

Shoppers take on Black Friday

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By JEFF SCHMUCKER | Hernando Today

Published: November 27, 2009

With no sleep following a 12-hour work shift on Thursday, Marylou Monforte didn't let something like fatigue stop her from getting the best deals a shopper could find.
Beginning at 2 a.m., she and her sister Barbara Franco took to the stores — first collecting all the freebees area businesses were doling out before shopping for bargains.
"Everybody at work thinks I'm crazy," Monforte said. "But this is something we do every year. It's great because you get all your shopping over with in one day — well most of it."
Monforte and at least hundreds more flocked to the stores in Hernando County on Black Friday, to take advantage of various deals that included slashing hundreds of dollars off merchandise and giving away free gift cards.
Linda Fleischer, Target store manager in Spring Hill, said about 500 people waited outside her store to come in at about 5 a.m. on Friday. She said waiting customers behaved themselves as store associates opened one set of doors and were directed in.
"If you're asking in general, this year was definitely better that last year overall," Fleischer said. "We've been busy all day, but it did taper off after a couple of hours at about 11 a.m. and was a calmer, sort of steady busy."
She said customers, of course, seemed to be attracted to the electronic items and deals being offered for televisions, DVD and Blue-ray players along with electronic appliances. She added that toys are also a large draw for crowds as well.
Store employees at Belk also claim to have had a large crowd at the store with 250 gift cards being given out with amounts ranging from $5 to $1,000.
Chris Tracy, Belk store manager, said that along with GPS devices and other electronics being big sellers, the colder weather helped sales of leather coats and sweaters.
"The weather was just perfect," Tracy said. "We were very pleased with the turnout."
In recent years, Black Friday has taken over as the busiest day of the year for business sales and is named because it traditionally was when the crowds of shoppers pushed stores into profitability, or "the black."
The Saturday before Christmas had been the biggest sales day until a few years ago when the tough economy made shoppers instead focus on pre-dawn early specials.
Black Friday has been the top sales day every year but one since 2002 when data was being collected. The only exception was in 2004, when the Saturday before Christmas again stole the crown.
Meanwhile, many analysts expect nationwide sales for the weekend to be unchanged compared with last year, even though the National Retail Federation trade group projects bigger crowds. That's because individual shoppers are likely to cut back on their spending even more this year.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Reporter Jeff Schmucker can be reached at 352-544-5271 or jschmucker@hernandotoday.com.

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