An hour after Emilia Dlugolecka opened her consignment boutique at the north end of Andersonville, she made her first Black Friday sale, a total of about $30.
Still small business owners in this North Side neighborhood said that year-over-year sales show an improving economy.
Dlugolecka said sales are about 40 percent up from a difficult 2011, when she just sold enough clothes and accessories to pay the bills.
On Friday, she greeted familiar faces with offers of 30 percent off of outerwear, such as gloves and scarves, 15 percent off accessories and 25 percent off anything else.
She had a few people walk in before she made a sale but she was confident that she would sell more as people ventured outside.
Denise Riesen, a manager at Andersonville Galleria, near Foster Avenue, also said sales were slow, but foot traffic started increasing by about 1 p.m.
The Galleria houses more than 90 small designers, artists and entrepreneurs.
On the second floor, between Performado Photography and Figano Parisian Interiors, Sheila Hansen, owner of If a Goddess Wore Makeup, finished a basket with $10 lotions and fragrances, regularly priced at $16 to $20.
Hansen said her chemical-free products priced between $12 and $42 have developed a steady following since she opened her business 3 1/2 years ago. This season, her customers are buying bold lipsticks, especially red colors.
After lunch at nearby Mediterranean restaurant, Mary Wells and Bethy Sielaff perused through the Galleria.
"I don't see the economy ... improvement is very slow but I think people got the point where they want to treat themselves a bit," said Sielaff, 66.
Sielaff, a retired teacher, said she doesn't shop much, but when she does, she prefers to support local merchants and artists. Her budget is about the same as last year, she said, but she doesn't need a lot of things. At her age, she would rather get an invitation for the movies or a play because she can take her memories with her when she dies, she said.
Massive crowds negotiated the escalators and the revolving door at Water Tower Place Friday afternoon.
Megan Rohde, 40, was there with her Bay City, Mich., family for their annual Black Friday shopping adventure.
They'd done Walmart the night before and hit Kmart and Target Friday morning.
Still, she said much of Friday was about activity as opposed to spending.
"It's more just people watching. We're doing some shopping, but we don't have a ton of stuff.
"We're two teachers and we are tight, tight, tight," she said.
Still, her family plans to spend a bit more this year.
"It's better than last year. Our insurance went up last year, and we hadn't gotten accustomed to it. This year, we're accustomed to it."
Craig Lightfoot and John Livingston III were on a bag hunt downtown.
In Chicago for a radiology conference, the Melbourne, Austrailia, duo began shopping at 9 a.m.
"We're chasing bags for the wives," Lightfoot said.
He plans to shell out more money for gifts this year.
"The kids are getting older and I'm spending more," he said.
Livingston, who'd picked up handbags for his daughter at Barney's and was scouting for more for his wife, said the family's shopping budget is out of his hands.
"My wife sets the budget from the other side of the world," Livingston said. "At this point, it's infinite."
The Henri Bendel handbag and accessory store offered doorbusters this year to drive traffic.
"We wanted to see if we could get a lift in our business," store manager Kristen Koch said. "We found it drove a lot of self purchases.
"It seem like everyone is looking for the best deal," Koch said. "They might be spending the same amount as last year, but they're getting more."
Mary Jane and Steve Day, both 62 and from Peoria, strategized for their Black Friday excursion to Woodfield Mall after spending Thanksgiving with family in Rolling Meadows.
"She woke me up 6:52 (a.m.), " he said.
Looking for luggage, the Days started by shopping online, then called stores to buy over the phone. The first physical stop for the retirees wasn't until 9 a.m. at the Macy's store.
"This isn't bad," said Steve Day. "There's not that many people in the streets."
And though the Macy's store had been opened since 12 a.m., Mary Jane Day said: "We're too old to get up that early."
Salsa, Cumbia and Corridos filled the otherwise empty 26th Street in Little Village and its many businesses.
At a discount mall near South Kedzie Avenue, Enrique "Kimo" Ambriz said sales have been slow all week, mainly because people have been saving their money to shop at the big stores downtown on Black Friday.
Ambriz said that when he first started working as a salesman here 21 years ago, shop owners used to make $1,500 a day in sales. Yesterday, the average was about $400. On the weeks leading to Christmas, shops would sell $5,000 to $6,000 worth or merchandise, he said. Last year, the average was $1,200.
He had customers from across the region that would seek his help to find the best deal among the many business owners inside the mall, he said. But many have lost their job or have stopped coming to see him because of high gasoline prices.
"Two years ago, they had good jobs, but they've lost everything and are now working for minimum wage," Ambriz said of his customers.
Case in point is Jose Luis Perez, who was people watching with his wife as family friends shopped. The couple worked at a laundromat until it closed in July. As a result, there isn't a budget for presents this year, Perez said.
For Shelly Wright's first Black Friday experience, she and friend Megan Valentine got to the mall at 6:30 a.m. The Chicago women dropped a load of bags at the car three hours later, and said they would probably shop until lunch time.
Wright, 32, moved to the country three years ago from her native Canterbury, England. She said with a laugh: "This is kind of a grand, cultural experience."
Valentine, 28, said she's been Black Friday shopping for years. She said sales were better last year than this, though the crowds were more manageable.
"I expected it to be a lot worse but we weren't the first drove of people," Valentine said. "A lot of stores staggered their open times."
The frenzy is not created equal for all retailers.
Even if they don't have specials or promotions, small and independent businesses can be subject to a shopping center's early opening hours.
At Woodfield, Candy World owner Parul Patel manned her shop alone starting at midnight Friday without any specials.
The store's customer base is made up of children and teenagers, and the merchandise is at a low price point. This means business was normal, if not slow during some parts of the night, Patel said.
To fill some of the time, she read a newspaper, topped off candy containers and people-watched. The mall was busier than usual, but Patel said: "Nobody is here, you can see."
This year was the first mandatory 12 a.m. opening for the metro area's largest shopping center. Of Woodfield Mall's nearly 300 businesses across 2.2 million square feet, only about 20 stores didn't open at that time, according to the mall's general manager, Marc Strich.
Retailers and customers had asked for the early hours, Strich said. Last year, the mall held a "volunteer" midnight opening, and about 20 stores participated.
As is typical, stores other than big-box retailer are required to be open when the mall is, Strich said, though he declined to talk about whether there were any fined or punishments for those that aren't.
Sears opened Thursday at 8 p.m., while Nordstrom's didn't open until 9 a.m. Friday, Strich said.
Amanda Lewkowicz, the store manager at PJ's Avon Beauty Center, said it didn't initially want to open at midnight after disappointing sales last year.
"We didn't want to be open at midnight because it didn't pick up until 5 a.m. last year," Lewkowicz said. "We felt it didn't benefit us."
The store is a rare brick-and-mortar outlet for Avon beauty products, which is typically sold through catalogs and sales representatives. That "destination" business model for PJ's Avon means customers typically seek them out, Lewkowicz said.
Being independently owned also requires its own promotional efforts, which included emailing its customer list and cold-calling others.
"(Other stores) do commercial advertising. We can only do so much," Lewkowicz said.
Jessica Foch had only sold one pack of cigarettes by noon at the smoke shop on Division Street in Wicker Park, in spite of her boss's insistence that a Black Friday special on hookahs would bring in throngs of shoppers.
The 24-year-old store manabger admitted that 25 percent off a $300 hookah is a pretty big discount but said she didn't expect to see them fly off the shelf.
"People don't go to little shops like this on Black Friday. They go to Target and Kmart," she said.
With pink hair, sparkly black nail polish and fingerless gloves, Foch said she once worked for Wal-Mart and hates the way people treat each other on Black Friday
She plans to spend at least $100 on her boyfriend and give generously to friends. But she won't be shopping today.
"I know somebody who got punched in the face for a toaster," she said, "a toaster."
The line may seem impressive outside St. Alfred's -- a streetwear clothier in Wicker Park -- but that's because the tiny shop is only letting in one person at a time, apparently to avoid a run on the Michael Jordan sneakers out Friday.
"But we don't even want them," said Armin Hajdarovic, 17, bundled up outside the store with a half a dozen friends as it began to snow.
The crew of Northsiders was waiting to get inside to buy shirts at 20 percent off.
Asked who they were shopping for, the group said: themselves, of course.
By 9:30 a.m. on Black Friday, still a half hour before Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard would open on any other weekday, Santa was in his green armchair and lines had queued at Caribou Coffee for those refueling, some after an entire night of shopping.
At the food court, three sisters sipped from cartons of orange juice, their daughters having awakened them hours before dawn for a 4 a.m. excursion. One, Patricia Baker, 54, of Maywood, had made an 8 p.m. jaunt to Target Thursday and a midnight run to Anna's Linens.
Now, she and her sisters, Donna Holliday, 48, of Bellwood, and Carolyn Baker, 56, of Lombard, and their daughters had spread their J.C. Penney, Forever 21, Victoria's Secret and Bath and Body Works bags across several tables, taking a break before heading to Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora.
The sisters hadn't been able to get together for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, so shopping signified bonding time.
"I'm just hanging with my sisters and nieces," said Holliday. "Just hangin'."
Baker added that she lets her daughter, Jahanna Baker, 19, and nieces, Azia and Amber Welch, both 17, do most of the shopping while she and her sisters chat at the follow.
"My income has become more secure," said Carolyn, a nurse. "The fear has died down. My work hours are more steady." She plans to spend a couple thousand dollars more this year, including a new stove she bought for herself.
Holliday, too, says she has been working more hours this year and plans to spend a couple hundred dollars more .
"I buy what I like," she said, "as long as I'm not broke."
At the courtyard in front of Von Maur at Yorktown, three generations of shoppers sat on a bench with bags from the Gap, Justice, Claire's and Aeropostale around their feet.
Kathy Zuehlke, 69, had driven in from Rantoul, in central Illinois, to go shopping with her daughter, Lisa Salgado, 43, and granddaughter Alicia Salgado, 14, both of Rockford.
It was the first time Alicia had joined the decade-long tradition, which Kathy views as "a chance to get together because we're all spread out across Illinois."
They followed a system, scouring the circulars from three newspapers before plotting a course that took them to Target on Thanksgiving evening, back at a relative's house to nap for a few hours and on to Kohl's, Best Buy, Toys "R" Us and Yorktown.
They had budgeted about as much for gifts this year as the last, about $300 to $500 for Lisa and $800 to $900 for Kathy, who says she has several grandchildren to spoil.
They pay in cash, however, so as not to overspend. The deals they snagged on Black Friday, including 60 percent off most apparel, helped them stay within budget, too.
In Chicago's rapidly gentrifying Logan square neighborhood, most shops and restaurants were closed Black Friday, but not Torres-Omar Jewelry.
The tiny shop, near the Blue Line stop, was offering double discounts on watches.
Bob Garza -- dressed as Santa Claus and handing out fliers for the jewelry store and candy canes as CTA riders exited the train station -- said he usually delivers groceries for Mariano's but the shop is closed through the weekend so he got out his Santa outfit to make a little extra cash.
Tomorrow, Santa will be handing out Chamber of Commerce fliers on Belmont.
"The economy is bad right now," he said. "There's work out there. You just have to create it."
Across the street at the jewelry store, Jose Torres, the store's owner, said they've been in the same location since 1980 and stay open Black Friday because their regular customers expect it.
"We're always open," he said. The store was quiet, but Torres said traffic to the store looked better than last year.
Just before 7 a.m. the door busters and the crowds had dwindled at the Target in Schaumburg. Store leader Aaron Stephenson said that while the store was still busy, the crowd had died down a bit. "This is what I consider normal busy for a weekend," said Stephenson.
This is the Minneapolis-based Target's first year offering staggered door busters, the first at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving, when the store opened and the second, at 4 a.m. Friday. Beyond consumer electronics, housewares had been popular according to Stephenson and by early morning some had also disappeared, including a Dyson Vacuum, a Farberware 18-piece cook set and a Pyrex 20-piece set.
The stack of PlayStation 3 and XBox 360's also were gone and toys, including Legos, he said, flew off the shelves. There are plenty of still good deals, Stephenson added. "We still have quite a few big TVs," he said.
In a form of subtle protest, several people who roamed Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard as early as 4 a.m. started buying when they usually did -- on Friday morning -- and refused to give into retailers that opened their doors on Thursday evening.
"I boycotted anything midnight or earlier," said Chrissy Wojdyla, 29, of Downers Grove. "I will not shop there. I think it's ruining Thanksgiving tradition and infringing on my family." Moving Black Friday hours up to Thanksgiving, she added, "takes people away from their families."
Instead, Wojdyla, her sister, Mary Steele, 26, and their mother, Patti Wojdyla, 54, dedicated their Thanksgiving Day to family and food, withholding themselves from any kind of shopping until they met at Yorktown at 4 a.m. Friday.
"Four a.m. is early enough!," said Patti, of Glen Ellyn. "Why would anyone want to do it on Thanksgiving evening? You're full. You're tired."
Steele, also of Glen Ellyn, said that caring for her young kids all day had made Thanksgiving too tiring to shop.
Plus, she said, "when you start on Thanksgiving Day, it's not even Black Friday. We enjoy our 4 a.m. Friday tradition."
So they all got sleep on Thursday, ranging from 1 to 6 hours , and woke up to glam themselves out with glitter, tiaras and garland necklaces for their early morning of shopping. Steele wore a paper crown that read "Happy Holidays." |
For their efforts to keep with Yorktown's "bling" theme, Lynette Steinhauser, the assistant marketing director at the mall, rewarded them with $10 gift cards to Von Maur, which prompted a profusion of delighted thank-yous.
Outside of J.C. Penney, Ramiro Carrizales, 44, waited with his wife, Lorena Carrizales, 40, in a seven-people-deep crowd for the store to open at 6 a.m.
They were looking for good clothing deals for their kids, specifically Mickey Mouse-themed items, but the couple, who lives in Forest Park, adamantly stuck to early Friday morning shopping hours instead of venturing out on Thursday evening.
On Thanksgiving, said Ramiro, "I wanted to spend time with family. I didn't want to go out."
Post-Thanksgiving shopping also is a ritual for Elk Grove's Krys Slattery, Chris Duncker and Gina Wirth -- a decade-long tradition among friends.
Each year, they finish Thanksgiving dinner with their families and embark upon a 12-hour pilgrimage to knock-out the bulk of the Christmas shopping by visiting several stores in and around Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. They power-up with coffee and breakfast at Panera and then wind-down the spree at Olive Garden for lunch.
"We're constantly laughing," said Duncker. "It's not just about the deals for us really, It's all about the experience, we love it," added Wirth.
On Thanksgiving night they were in the Target on Higgins Road in Schaumburg. Each with carts, a list and Target's "door buster" circular holding folded in their hands. All three giggled and called out to each other, squealing with delight when they spied a good deal.
After picking-up some blue sequined slippers for her teenage daughter, Slattery held them up for Wirth and Duncker to inspect. "Do you think she'll like these?" she said.
This year Slattery was lucky. Target was opening earlier than ever -- at 9 p.m. so her mother cooked Thanksgiving dinner.
The trio weren't alone, the Target on Higgins Road in Schaumburg was swarmed, many pushing carts piled high with merchandise, from 50-inch televisions, to game consoles, tablet computers, MP3 players, apparel and cameras, which manager Brett Thiele said sold out in an hour.
The scene was similar at Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard.
Laura Maxey and six of her closest friends shrieked when they saw the black bags. They had carved out a spot in front of the information booth at Yorktown, standing for 5 1/2 hours at the head of a 250-person line, until the mall officially opened at 5 a.m. Friday and the staff began handing out goodie bags filled with multicolored totes and $10 gift cards to stores throughout the mall.
"We pretty much just slept over at the mall," said Laura, 14, of Lombard. "We wanted to be first."
Their parents had dropped the friends, plus two older brothers, off at the mall shortly before midnight, and they rushed to the booth to claim their spots -- only the first 200 people in line would receive gift bags, with another 50 turned away -- before taking turns to embark on a shopping rotation that included Victoria's Secret, American Eagle and PacSun. At Charlotte Russe, they picked up $15 jeans.
The friends said they were at the mall for the joy, the deals and the once-a-year feel of Black Friday, and they were hardly the only ones caught up in the retail frenzy.
"I got a suitcase thrown at my head!" said Melanie Malczewski, 14, of Lombard, recalling her experience at Victoria's Secret, though she was smiling broadly at the memory later that morning.
Lynette Steinhauser, assistant marketing director at Yorktown, said that this, her 14th Black Friday at the mall, "is the busiest it's ever been." About half of the stores had been open since midnight, she said, with nearly all the rest the turning on their lights when the mall officially opened at 5 a.m. Steinhauser compared the foot traffic at 5: 30 a.m. on Black Friday to what it feels like on a Saturday afternoon.
"Everyone is in a really happy mood," she said. "And festive!"
Black Friday, which for years kicked-off the holiday shopping season for retailers and consumers, has bled into Thanksgiving, with retailers including Target, Sears and Toys R US opening on Thursday night aiming to boost their bottom lines by enticing consumers to shop early and often.
Holiday shopping is crucial for retailers -- it accounts for up to 40 percent of their yearly sales. That's why it's called "Black Friday" as for years they've used the day to go from red to black -- or turn a profit.
This year, retail watchers are expecting holiday shoppers to oblige. Consumers are expected to spend, on average, $586.1 billion this year on gifts for friends and family, just over a 4 percent increase from last year. Experts are saying this pick-up in spending is conservative, but a glimpse at popular hotspots for early Black Friday shopping, it wasn't apparent.
This year a handful opened earlier than ever, Walmart set an 8 p.m. opening and Sears followed suit. Target opted for an opening scheduled an hour later at 9 pm.
Despite some criticism around the increasingly early open times, shoppers in Schaumburg were out in full-force last night. A Deloitte survey found that 60 percent of consumers plan to shop over Thanksgiving weekend, aiming to take part in sales that offer merchandise at prices the dip below 50 percent off.
Experts said that this year, as in most years, low-priced flat screen televisions would move fast. So would deeply discounted Android-powered tablet computers.
The line to get into the Sears at Woodfield Mall stretched along the building by 7 p.m., an hour before opening time.
Manager April Buehler said the line outside the store looked larger than last year, and about a mile away at Target, Thiele said this year the store was filled with more families, instead of the hardcore, deal-hunter that typically shows up when the store opens early on Friday morning. "It's a lot more casual shopper, which I'm excited about," said Thiele. "It's not necessarily people that had to get up super early and be dedicated, just people going out with families. Grandparents and grandkids," he said.
Carol and Russel Freitas fall into the deal-hunter category. It's date night for the Palatine couple of 26 years when they head out to shop each year after dinner, leaving their two teenaged sons behind to tackle the stores. They said they love it.
They waited patiently in line for more than an hour, hoping to snag one of Sears' hot door busters, a 32-inch flat screen for less than $100.
As it turns out, they waited in vain. By the time the store opened, they were in the first third of the line, but the Sears employee had run out of TV vouchers when she got to the Freitas' in line. "It's okay," said Carol Freitas, "There's other stuff on our list, we're going to head to the boys' department to get shirts for my son."
Shortly before Sears opened, about 12 feet away from the Freitas, there was a small, but growing crowd of suspected "line jumpers," who stood about 12 feet away staring at the line.
At close to 9:30 at Target, some shoppers could be seen pushing carts stockpiled with 32 inch flat screen for $147. Alex Gackle from Fargo, N.D., left his grandmother's dinner with his dad and brother-in-law to buy another of the Minneapolis-based retailer's most sought-after deals: They bought four televisions. One for himself, another for his grandmother, one for her caretaker and the fourth for his father. They waited in line for more than an hour and things were calm, said Gackle. That changed when Target's doors opened, said Gackle. "That's when people started getting crazy and rushing toward things."
By 10:30 a long line of shoppers were still waiting to get inside the Toys R Us in Schaumburg. Customers said they were told that shoppers would be allowed in the store every 10 minutes in increments of 50.
After 10 p.m. the temperature had dropped and Laura Saul stood in a sweater with her two daughters and their cousin to get into Toys R Us. The item of the evening -- "Monster High" dolls for her 10-year-old daughter, Emily. She pointed to Emily and said, giggling, "She conned us to do this." Saul's old daughter, Lauren, who stood nearby, was not in such good spirits, "I could be sleeping," she said.
The trio from Elk Grove shopping at Target said over the years they've seen it all -- fights and shoving matches. As the 10 p.m. hour approached at Target, they thought things were pretty calm. At Target People get angry, but this is fun for us," said Wirth. "Even if we don't get what we want, we don't care."
Sally Ho, Julie Wernau and Erin Chan Ding contributed to this story.
crshropshire@tribune.com | Twitter: @corilyns
Chicago shopping frenzy gets early start
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