Season opener
By From staff reports
Published in News on November 27, 2015 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Lark Thornton looks through the Christmas jewelry for her sisters-in-law on sale at Belk early today. Each year around 70 people gather at her home on the second weekend in December and she gives out stockings.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Noemi Ponce restocks the shelves in the toy department at Kmart with Frozen merchandise this morning. Kmart opened at 6 a.m.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Zhane Edwards looks through the boots on sale for Black Friday at Belk. Edwards was taking advantage of the sales to buy a few things for herself.
Black Friday came early this year at Berkeley Mall, with stores like J.C. Penney and Belk opening Thursday afternoon rather than this morning.
The shift in times did nothing to diminish the large crowds, store officials said. Despite the rush, however, the atmosphere was a bit more peaceful than in years past.
"It was crazy, there were a lot of people," J.C. Penney human resources manager Zack Stroud said. "We had a really good year."
Stroud drew the early morning shift today and so he was not there when the doors opened at 3 p.m. Thursday. But that did not prevent him from hearing about it when he came in to work.
"Yeah, they told me it was crazy. We had coupon giveaways, cash prize giveaways," Stroud said.
And the top-selling items this year -- the same as every year -- were small appliances.
"Crock pots, griddles, that sort of thing," he said.
Second to appliances were kids clothing items, specifically jeans. That is what brought Kimberly Goodman and her mother, Anna Bell, to Goldsboro all the way from Faison.
"Well, we live in Turkey, just outside of Faison. But we usually do our shopping in Clinton, and we don't have these stores, Bell said
Stroud said the fact that J.C. Penney opened three hours ahead of the other area stores was of a particular advantage. The large crowds and mad dash for the door busters gave way relatively quickly to a calm, low-pressure shopping experience.
"It wasn't like they had to rush to get to the next store. They knew they had three hours before any of the other businesses opened, so it was a great advantage for us," he said. "It was pretty nice, actually."
A few doors down from Stroud, by the time 6 p.m. rolled around, a line had begun to form outside of Belk. Human resources manager Hannah Sanders said they, too, had a pretty good year. She said the shoppers she and her staff encountered pretty much had one item in mind -- boots.
"Shoes. Women's boots. $19.99," Sanders said.
Rampage women's boots regularly priced between $89 and $69 were flying off the racks at $19.99. Other styles sold for a few, maybe $10 more, she said.
There was no chaos this morning as Black Friday got under way at KMart and Target.
Early this morning around 5 a.m., there were only a handful of people at either location.
Both stores started the Black Friday sales on Thursday so by the time Thursday turned into Friday most everyone who intended to take advantage of the Black Friday sales had already done so.
"It's been a quite busy, very successful Thanksgiving Day sale," said KMart store manager Mike Newsome. "We opened our doors at 6 a.m. (on Thanksgiving) and let about 100 people in. We were open all day, and we were busy from then until about midnight. There was a little bit of a lull in the afternoon yesterday, but we had a second sale at 7 p.m. last night and that's when it picked back up until midnight."
Michael and Michelle Phillips woke up at 2 a.m. this morning to start their Black Friday shopping, starting the day at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base exchange.
They said they were after mostly electronics, and had already purchased a Nikon camera to take photos with on a cruise they are going on.
"We're going to Target, and then Sears to get clothes for the cruise," Mrs. Phillips said.
Phillips used to be active duty in the military, and said both he and his wife refuse to participate in Thanksgiving Day shopping sales.
"We don't do any shopping on Thanksgiving Day," Mrs. Phillips said. "I don't mean this offensively, but everyone deserves a holiday. We just think it's wrong. Everybody deserves to be with their families on Thanksgiving."
Jennifer Byrd woke up at 5 a.m. this morning and went to Target to buy her son a Playstation 4 before she went into work at 9 a.m. She planned to go to Dunham's Sports directly after Target to pick up a few hunting supplies.
She said she had planned out her shopping before diving into it.
"You go and you pick up a copy of the paper, and then you look through it and pick out what you want from each place and map it out," Mrs. Byrd said.
Target opened at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. As far as Black Friday goes, Mrs. Byrd said this one was a walk in the park.
"I've been in Target before when they had people lined up from back here at the electronics counter all the way to the registers at the front of the store," she said.
Mrs. Byrd said after she finished her shopping at Target and Dunham's, she planned to do some online shopping as time came available during her workday.
Kim Kendall said she was participating in Black Friday shopping for the first time in 15 years, and that it was much calmer this morning than it ever had been.
"Back in the day we used to have to get up at 3 a.m. to get here before the crowds," Mrs. Kendall said. "This morning we got out the door around 5:30 a.m."
Mrs. Kendall was walking through Target this morning, and said she was after nothing in particular.
But they only missed the crowd by a few hours.
"My daughter called me last night as she was driving over the overpass right here on (Highway) 70 and said, 'Mama be careful, people are crazy out here,'" Mrs. Kendall said. "She said the parking lot was so full of cars that people were parking on the curbs."
Compared to past Black Fridays, she said she was taking it easy this year and enjoying the calm environment this time around.
"We're just looking around, having fun and making memories," she said.