Black Friday Shoppers In Suburban St. Louis Lured By ‘The Deal’

In this suburban community 22 miles west of downtown St. Louis, price ruled at Walmart, open all day long on Thanksgiving, despite the threat of a looming strike from disgruntled employees. We encountered no protestors or striking workers there or in the jam-packed parking lot where new arrivals tailed shoppers to their cars to nail a parking spot. Several shoppers we canvassed expressed some support for Walmart employees whose working conditions and pay have been a highly publicized focus of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union over the past month. Their concerns weren’t strong enough to deter them from nabbing Black Friday deals a day early.

A woman who identified herself only as Meg, in town from Indianapolis for the holiday, said, “I'm sympathetic to the rumors I've heard about how Walmart associates are treated, but if you have a job where you have to work on Thanksgiving, you have to work.” At about 8:45 p.m. Thursday, Meg had been waiting in line for 3-1/2 hours for Walmart’s iPad 2 deal -- with a $75 Walmart gift card included -- part of the retailer’s “Event 2” for customers who were in line between 10-11 p.m. to get a guaranteed $399 price. Her husband had already secured the Xbox bundle that was handed out to customers beginning at 8 p.m. for “Event 1.” Black Friday shopping wasn’t new for the couple, but shopping at Walmart for doorbusters was. “Usually we shop at Toys R Us on Black Friday,” she said. “But the better deals were here this year.” Walmart had 71 iPad 2s in stock, she was told, and would supply rain checks for customers in line at the designated 10-11 p.m. hour after stock ran out.

Lesley Love, of Overland, Mo., arrived at Walmart at 5 p.m. with a budget of $300, not sure what products she and her husband, Irvin, would end up with in their cart. After studying the options in the store circular, Lesley lined up for the $198 Emerson TV marked as a “special buy,” pocketing a $100 she didn’t expect on the deal. With the $100 extra in spending money, she sent Irvin to the other Emerson TV line, where a 32-inch Emerson TV was part of the “1-hour-in-stock guarantee” that would kick in at 10 p.m. Walmart had 367 of the 32-inch TVs at the store, a staffer told us, and Irvin had a ticket for one of them. He was content biding his time listening to Maroon 5 on his iPhone under headphones knowing he'd leave with a TV, he said. Customers with ticket 368 and above would get the price but would need to come back to the store for pickup before Christmas, they were told.

Some customers in the various deal lines weren’t sure exactly what price they were paying but knew they had one of the deals, they told us. Walmart had neatly organized orderly lines of shoppers that snaked up and down the aisles in areas away from the electronics department. Customers appeared to be resigned for the wait. Chris Lett, of St. Louis, split TV shopping duties with his girlfriend, who was in line for another Emerson TV elsewhere in the store, he said. The couple was replacing two “small” TVs with larger Emerson LCD models on sale, he said. Lett’s job was to get the 32-inch Emerson, which he thought would sell for “about a hundred,” he said, but in reality was priced in the circular for $148.

The third Walmart product with a price guarantee was an LG Blu-ray player for $38. Darryl, of Lake Sherwood, Mo., positioned about a dozen places back from the front of the line, was leaning on his shopping cart, which held a lone quart bottle of orange juice. He held a voucher for one of 500 doorbuster Blu-ray players Walmart had stocked. The LG, which would be the family’s first Blu-ray player, was replacing a DVD player that had a future at a recycler or Goodwill, he said. Darryl’s wife was lined up for one of the 32-inch Emerson TVs. The new 32-inch TV would replace a 14-inch model in the bedroom that would move to Darryl’s basement shop, he said.

Laura Granger, of Wildwood, Mo., was acting as her sister’s placeholder for a 32-inch Emerson TV, while her sister was shopping meticulously for toys elsewhere in the store, Granger said. Granger’s sister, an accountant, had a carefully researched list and strict budget, she said. It was unlikely she'd leave Walmart with anything more than she came for, Granger said. She was pushing her sister to recycle the old CRT TV the Emerson would replace, but that negotiation wasn’t final, she said.

Best Buy, a block or two down the massive strip mall in Chesterfield from Walmart, opened at midnight on Black Friday, but its reputation for good deals had a throng of customers in line well before doors opened. Roughly 450 shoppers were waiting at 10:30 p.m. Thanksgiving night, and another 100 had joined by 11:45 p.m., braving thunder, rain and wind and temperatures that plunged into the 40s.

'I Don’t Care About Turkey’

Best Buy was an event destination for several experienced, hard-core suburban CE shoppers, we found. One such shopper, Barb Locke, from Defiance, Mo., took her place at the head of the line outside the Chesterfield store, but that required her arriving at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning with a tent and fold-up chair for the duration and nourishing herself with meals from Walmart or takeout food delivered by relatives who came by, she said. On missing Thanksgiving turkey, Locke told us, “I don’t care about turkey. To be here before the midnight rush through the door is a real high.” But Locke had a strong opinion about Black Friday’s early start on Thanksgiving, and didn’t like it, she said. “They call it Black Friday for a reason.”

Locke took three days off from her day job as a letter carrier and her night job as a newspaper deliverer to feed her annual Black Friday rite. She beat the next person to be first in line by a full day, she said. She and her husband, a part-timer on line duty, had six items on their shopping list. Among them were the $179 40-inch Toshiba LCD TV and the $399 50-inch Toshiba set. She said she had designs on a $349 laptop bundle, but couldn’t remember the brand. It was a Samsung 15.6-inch laptop, with security software, a sleeve, mouse and thumb drive discounted by $225.

Best Buy employees emerged from the store every few minutes to hand out doorbuster sale vouchers. Locke excused herself from our chat and lunged for a coupon for a $189 Panasonic LCD TV. “I'm not sure if I'll get it,” she said, but at least she had the option. A few minutes later, a staffer came by with coupons for a $39 Toshiba Blu-ray player.

Elsewhere, we listened in as a Best Buy staffer told a customer the rules about doorbuster deals. Temperatures were falling, the wind was picking up and the customer was getting agitated about waiting in line for a bargain $179 Toshiba TV ($240 off) that might be sold out by the time he got into the store. The staffer told him the store would honor the price of any product on sale, as long as he purchased the product in the store on Black Friday. The staffer couldn’t guarantee prices would hold if purchased online, because different warehouses served store and online sales, he said. The customer wouldn’t have to come back to the store for the TV, unlike Walmart’s price guarantee program, and shipping would be free, the staffer said. “We have multiple ways to get it to you."

Not all customers were aware of that policy. Karlyn Kyle, of Wildwood, Mo., arrived at 8:10 p.m. in hopes of getting a voucher for the $179 40-inch Toshiba LCD TV. If the store ran out by the time she got in, she would consider a 26-inch Insignia instead for $99. Kyle had Thanksgiving brunch at 10:30 a.m., and didn’t mind that Black Friday had been pushed to Thanksgiving night. It was now 10:30 p.m., and her husband would replace her in line at Best Buy while she headed to Kohl’s for that store’s Black Friday opening, also at midnight. She would sleep a bit afterward and then be back to the stores at 5 a.m., she said.

Best Buy was the only one of the three retailers we canvassed in the Chesterfield shopping zone that used a Foursquare lure as added enticement. We told Kyle she could get $20 back from American Express on a $200 purchase by checking in on Foursquare, but she wasn’t an American Express customer. All wasn’t lost, though. As a Best Buy Premier Silver customer, she said she had “lots of points” to help bring down ticket prices.

Pete Eberhardt and Emily Hoehn of O'Fallon, Mo., had their portable chairs in place at Best Buy at 6 p.m. with intent to buy a 50-inch Toshiba LCD TV marked down $240 to $179. “It'll probably be gone by the time we get there,” Eberhardt said, so the couple grabbed a voucher for a Panasonic LED-lit LCD TV for $899, just in case. Eberhardt cited the new policy of honoring prices on deals even if the store ran out of product, so the couple still had 90 minutes to mull over which deal they'd take.

Locke, the leader of the pack, planned to keep only one of the half dozen items she would score that night, calling herself “very generous” with gifts for family, she said. She'd keep the 50-inch Toshiba TV to replace the 60-inch Sharp TV she bought as a doorbuster last year. That TV went off to college with her son. Locke doesn’t have the same needs she had last year when the couple’s Black Friday budget was $3,000 and included a washer/dryer combo so this year’s budget is $2,000. Although Best Buy staff “know me” and allow her to set up camp for several days, she doesn’t get any special favors. Still, she’s loyal to the store. Hhgregg moved in down the street last summer and was holding its own Black Friday deals a few hours earlier, but Locke “didn’t care for their ads,” and dismissed the chain, saying, “they're new in town.” Best Buy “has the best brands and they back up their products,” she said.

'And Then You Move On'

At 11:45 p.m., Locke and other shoppers were getting ready to bust the doors. On how the actual shopping experience would measure up to the wait, Locke said she'd be in the store “15 minutes tops” and then head straight to her newspaper delivery job and from there to her letter carrier job later in the day. The mission for “good deals and good buys” nearly accomplished, Locke said, “It is what it is, and then you move on.”

A few hours earlier, a three-minute drive away at hhgregg, about 300 people stood in an orderly line outside the store waiting for the 10 p.m. opening. It was hhgregg’s first Black Friday in the St. Louis area. Store management, gearing for a possibly chaotic store opening, had a plan in place that began with an employee addressing the crowd about 10 minutes before doors opened. He asked shoppers to “respect the employees” who were working 24-hour shift, and said about 100 people at a time would be allowed into the store in 15-minute intervals.

It hadn’t been a long wait for the first four shoppers in line, who arrived between 6:30 and 7 p.m. Thanksgiving night, and had shared a lot of tech information over three hours. Mike Gelina, from Maryland Heights, Mo., had scoped out the deals online and was ready to snatch up a Mitsubishi 73-inch DLP TV for $799. He couldn’t pass up the price, a third of what he paid for his 60-inch Toshiba rear-pro 10 years ago. He might score a little more on the deal by putting the 60-inch on Craig’s List, where he hopes he can bring in $50 or so. On why he hit hhgregg versus another retailer, he said, “I thought it would be easier than dealing with Best Buy or Target.” While he was there, he'd check out a Toshiba 32-inch for $179 for his screened-in porch. The store circular said there would be a minimum of 30 in stock and 10 of the Mitsubishi TVs, so he got there early to secure vouchers.

Charles French, of Maryland Heights, Mo., was lured by a 39-inch Samsung LCD TV for $399 and came to hhgregg “because people don’t know about it, and they have just as good deals” as other electronics stores, he said. He wasn’t completely sold on that Samsung model, though, and wanted to see the picture, something he couldn’t do at Walmart, he said. When we found French in the store later on, he was eyeing a 51-inch Samsung plasma, advertised only as an “HDTV,” selling for $479. “I feel torn,” he told us, “and I don’t know if it will fit in the car.” We remarked that that was almost $100 more than he originally planned to spend, and he cited the 51-inch TV’s 26 percent discount, which he quickly calculated came out to $170 in “savings.” Not long after, he was standing in line to check out with the 39-inch Samsung, his original choice, because it was about 2 inches thinner, and lighter, than the plasma. Still wavering, he darted off to check out a Hisense 39-inch that came in about $100 less than the Samsung model before finally checking out with his first choice.

The feel at hhgregg was more like a typical sales day rather than a frenzied Black Friday. Commissioned sales associates were answering customer questions about products. We wondered how the commission would work out with one woman who had brought her tape measure to choose a TV based on her allotted space in an entertainment unit, and had two salespeople working with her for the 32- or 39-inch TV she would purchase.

Teri Reiter checked out at hhgregg with a Curtis seven-inch Klu tablet, discounted $40 with a $10 rebate thrown in. Her 12-year-old son wanted a laptop, but he was getting a tablet instead, Reiter said. “I'm not buying a $400 laptop when all he wants to do is watch YouTube videos.” Her husband was shopping elsewhere in the store for a $499 50-inch Toshiba LED-lit LCD TV. It was an addition to the family collection of TVs, which includes various bedroom models and a family big-screen in the basement. “My daughter is just starting to date,” she said. “They don’t want to be in the basement with us, and we don’t want her in her bedroom with her boyfriend,” so the couple was at a Black Friday sale to buy a $500 TV for the “public” space in the family room, she said.

Doorbuster prices at hhgregg had been in place all week, Dean Burroughs, store general manager, told us while checking receipts as customers exited the store. TVs, tablets and computers were the top-selling products out of the company’s 50 doorbusters, he said. Samsung TVs were especially hot sellers “because of value,” he said. “An abundance” of the PCs sold have been Windows 7 models with a Windows 8 upgrade option, he said. One hhgregg customer, Sean Collins, of Chesterfield, Mo., said the Windows upgrade didn’t interest him. Collins was in line to buy a $550 17-inch Dell laptop to replace a two-year-old “beat-up” HP, he said. “If it comes with a Windows 8 upgrade, I'll remove it,” Collins said. “Windows 8 looks goofy, like it should be on a phone rather than a laptop."

On how hhgregg is positioning itself against neighbors Best Buy and Walmart as the newcomer on the block, Burroughs told us, “We came into St. Louis with a goal. We're going to tear them apart, and I think we have.” On whether hhgregg will open even earlier than 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving next year, Burroughs said, “It all depends on the customer’s wants and needs. We're going to play the market.” Store employees are retail veterans, he said, “and retail is retail.”