‘It doesn’t seem like Black Friday.’ How COVID-19 changed Merced’s busiest shopping day
Sports Fever store manager Adam Barden stood in front of his store in the Merced Mall on Friday morning, ready to welcome customers.
His store was empty. During the first hour, Barden says maybe four or five people walked through his store.
It wasn’t a typical Black Friday for Barden, who has been working at Sports Fever for the past 10 years. He said usually on Black Friday there will be 25 to 50 people walking through the store.
“Horrible,” Barden said. “This is different, it’s not like any other Black Friday.”
With Merced County in the purple tier of COVID-19 restrictions, stores can only have 25% of their maximum capacity of shoppers at a time. Stores like Kohl’s and Aeropostale opened at 5 a.m. Friday at the Merced Mall.
The foot traffic at the Merced Mall did pick up a few hours later as stores like Footlocker, Bath & Body Works and Children’s Place had short lines of people waiting to come in as store employees made sure to keep store capacity at 25%.
Merced Mall Marketing Manager Nanette Villegas compared the environment in the mall to an average Wednesday in April.
“Actually, it’s going better than I expected,” Villegas said. “We have a decent crowd. We have a lot of people who are taking advantage of curbside service, we have people who are doing in-store pickup and a lot of the sales have been happening all month long and so that is leveling out the playing field. I’m really happy with the crowd that I have.”
Bath & Body Works had a line of about 10 to 15 people waiting outside the door just after noon as employees directed the customers where to stand so they were socially distanced.
Some customers enjoyed not having to compete with the large crowds. “It’s not as packed, it’s more calm,” said Yazmin Flores, as she shopped for shoes at Zumiez.
Mya Lopez came with her family to shop at Bath & Body Works. “It doesn’t seem like Black Friday’” Lopez said. “It seems like just another day. I thought there was going to be a lot more people and a lot more lines.”
Shoppers like Flores and Lopez said the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t keep them away. Flores says she wears her facemask and carries hand sanitizer with her. “We use our precautions, we’re very mindful,” Lopez said.
Black Friday may have looked different, but Villegas was happy the Merced Mall was permitted to be open at all.
“A usual ‘Black Friday’ is shoulder to shoulder, lines that go from here to there,” she said. “It’s a little different, but you know what actually it’s a bit more peaceful, the flow is really good and we’re just excited that we’re still open.
Many Black Friday shoppers going online
For regular Black Friday shoppers, the smaller crowds weren’t that much of a surprise.
The day has been shrinking for years as people shop online and retailers offer deals long before what used to be a huge one-day event.
Online shopping on Thanksgiving Day 2020 brought in a record-breaking $5.1 billion, nearly a 22% increase from online sales last year, according to data tracked by Adobe Analytics.
But Black Friday isn’t dead. It’s too early to tell how much people spent online on Black Friday, but some are predicting anywhere between a 20% and a 42% increase.
The National Retail Federation predicts sales throughout the holiday season – both in store and online – will rise between 3.6% and 5.2%. However, some other research firms are predicting people will spend a little less this year.
The pandemic has led to layoffs of workers in some sectors, and uncertainty about the future is making people worried about their finances, according to technology firm Digital Remedy.
But most are still shopping, said NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz in a news release.
“After all they’ve been through, we think there’s going to be a psychological factor that they owe it to themselves and their families to have a better-than-normal holiday,” he said.
