Is Black Friday still a holiday shopping juggernaut in 2024?

NEW YORK (AP) — Retailers in the U.S. used giveaways and big discounts to reward shoppers who ventured out for Black Friday, hoping to extend the day’s reign as the much-hyped kickoff of the holiday shopping season.

Department stores, shopping malls and merchants — big and small — see the day after Thanksgiving as a way to energize shoppers and to get them into physical stores at a time when many browse and buy online.

Enough consumers still enjoy holiday shopping in person that Black Friday remains the biggest day of the year for retail foot traffic in the U.S., according to retail technology company Sensormatic Solutions.

At Macy’s Herald Square in Manhattan, a steady stream of shoppers early Friday found some shoes and handbags priced half-off, special occasion dresses marked down by 30%, and 60% off the store’s luxury bedding brand.

Keressa Clark, 50, and her daughter Morghan, 27, who were visiting New York from Wilmington, North Carolina, arrived at 6:15 a.m. at the store that served as the setting for the 1947 Christmas movie “Miracle on 34th Street.”

“We don’t have a Macy’s where we are from,” Morghan Clark said. “I am actually shocked to see so many Black Friday deals because so many things are online.”

Clark, who works as a nurse practitioner, said she was feeling better about the economy because of President-elect Donald Trump’s pending return to the White House and has plans to spend $2,000 this holiday season, about $500 more than a year ago.

She said she would not mind if prices are higher next year as a result of the tariffs on foreign-made goods Trump has pledged to implement. “Anything that can encourage production in the U.S. I am all for it,” Clark said.

In the U.S., analysts envision a solid holiday shopping season — though perhaps not as robust as last year’s — with many shoppers cautious with their discretionary spending despite the easing of inflation.

Julie Rambo, a retired school teacher, shoved aside her worries about the incoming Trump administration as she shopped with her grandchildren at a Target in Southfield, a few miles north of Detroit.

Rambo said she is “totally, completely scared of tariffs because I’m still going to need an automobile,” but it was a problem to confront later. As she does each year, she was primarily shopping for Christmas gifts through a prison ministry for children of parents who are incarcerated.

“As we’re shopping, we find things for ourselves, too,” said Rambo, 74.

At many stores, the huge crowds of Black Fridays past never returned after the coronavirus pandemic. Early Friday morning, a Walmart in Germantown, Maryland, had only half of the parking spots filled. Some shoppers were returning items or buying groceries.

Bharatharaj Moruejsan, a 35-year-old software engineer, said he typically doesn’t shop on Black Friday but decided to check out the deals at Walmart because he was jet-lagged after returning from a month-long family vacation to India. He scored an iPad for his 1-year-old daughter for $250, 32% off its original $370 price tag.

“That’s a good deal,” Moruejsan said.

Retailers are even more under the gun to get shoppers in to buy early and in bulk since there are five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

There were some hit items that stirred the old Black Friday mania.

Some Target shoppers lined up as early as 11:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving evening to await the 6 a.m. opening and get their hands on an exclusive book devoted to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and a bonus edition of her “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” album. Target said the exclusives would only be available in stores on Black Friday and customers can buy them online starting Saturday. Many locations sold out of their supply.

Shoppers at Lakeside Shopping Center in Metairie, Louisiana were able to grab a glass of champagne with a $50 gift receipt.

“This is a nice touch. I was just talking to my best friend and rehashing over Thanksgiving so this was a nice little treat after that conversation. Everyone needs a little drink,” said Faren Kennedy, a Houston resident who was in town visiting family and wanted to stop at the mall for the nostalgia of Black Friday shopping.

Best Buy introduced an extended-release version of the doorbuster, the limited-time daily discounts that for years were the rage and sometimes sparked brawls. The nation’s largest consumer electronics chain has released doorbuster deals every Friday since Nov. 8.

After visiting stores and malls on Long Island, Marshal Cohen, chief retail adviser at market research firm Circana, said that apart from people lining up for Taylor Swift merchandise, the number of shoppers appeared typical.

“The spreading out of the holidays has created the lack of need and lack of urgency,” said Cohen, who had a 20-person team monitoring crowds nationwide. “This is going to be a long, slow tedious process” of getting shoppers to buy, he said.

Michael Brown, a partner at global strategy and management consulting firm Kearney, saw no lines at the Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey, 10 minutes before the 7 a.m. opening.

“It’s not the old Black Friday that we used to know,” he said.

Retailers that offered at least 40% off drove shoppers’ attention, according to Brown. For example, Forever 21 had 50% to 70% discounts and had lines to the stores, while H&M, which offered 30% discounts, was relatively quiet.

Mall operators said they were seeing higher customer traffic than last year.

At Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, some 13,000 people showed up the first hour of its 7 a.m. opening, roughly 1,000 more than a year ago, according to Jill Renslow, the mall’s chief business development and marketing officer.

The mall was on target to exceed the 200,000 Black Friday customer visits it received in 2023, Renslow said. Stores with deep discounts and promotions were the most packed, she said, citing Lego’s giveaway of a free retro record player with a $250 purchase.

Stephen Lebovitz, CEO of CBL Properties, which operates 85 shopping properties, and Bill Taubman, president and chief operating officer of upscale mall landlord Taubman Realty Group, also said customer visits were up.

Early e-commerce sales figures gave retailers a reason to remain hopeful for a lucrative end to the year.

Vivek Pandya, the lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said consumers spent a record $6.1 billion online on Thanksgiving Day, up 8.8% from last year. Growth outpaced last year, driven by bigger-than-expected discounts that spurred impulse buys in electronics, apparel and other categories, Pandya said.

Across the board, Black Friday weekend discounts should peak at 30% on Cyber Monday and then retreat to around 15%, according to Adobe’s research.

Black Friday no longer is an American-only holiday event. Retailers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. also appealed to holiday shoppers looking to save money.

In India, about 200 Amazon warehouse workers and delivery drivers, rallied Friday in New Delhi, some wearing masks of Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, to demand better wages and working conditions. Similar protests were planned in other countries.