I’ve heard Black Friday stories from several states, and they all seem to agree that there was a high level of activity. That also fits with what I saw of retail parking lots in my local area, where shoppers started to arrive in numbers more than two hours before midnight. A high level of activity doesn’t automatically translate into a high sales total, but I also haven’t anything to suggest that shoppers were being unusually picky.
What I saw today, though, suggests that the Black Friday shopping frenzy is over. Traffic was almost back to normal at most of the retail parking lots. The exception was the shopping malls, which remained busy, if not hectic.
The only places where traffic seemed surprisingly light were the toy stores and consumer electronics stores. In both categories, I suspect the reason is that Christmas shoppers had already made their purchases online.
