Green on Black Friday

CALCUTTA - With the lure of doorbuster deals and deep discounts, stores across St. Clair Township saw some green on Black Friday.

Various retail employees reported a good day and said they saw a busy kick-off to the holiday shopping season in their stores starting very early Friday morning.

For one sales associate, that has worked at the Sears on state Route 170 for four years, the crowds came all day with most people purchasing a drill kit or a washer and dryer set.

"It's been really busy all day," Dean Hornbeck, Sears sales associate, said. "It's the best one we had since I've been here."

The customers were lining up at the Sears doorway at 5 a.m. Friday, Hornbeck added.

Just across the parking lot at K-Mart, the employees saw similar crowds as they opened their store at 7 a.m.

"It went very well," Teri Webber, local K-Mart manager, said.

Webber added that all of their advertised doorbuster items sold out during the day.

Walmart, on Dresden Avenue, also reported a good day in their store.

"It went well, we had no problems," J.R. Spencer, Walmart assistant manager said.

The front page of the Black Friday Walmart advertisement showed off HDTVs, a digital camera, GPS unit and a Blu-ray player. Spencer said these electronics, along with others, were hot items at the store.

"Electronics were a big, big thing," the assistant manager said.

Spencer added televisions, the Nintendo Wii, video games and movies were items customers tended to purchase from the store.

But the electronics department was not the only section that benefited from the deal-seeking holiday shoppers. Spencer said their apparel section did very well, too, as well as the toy department.

Walmart advertised $4 children's sleepwear, $8 hoodies, $8 jeans, $8 jackets and other low priced clothing.

Karen McDonald, spokeswoman at Taubman, which operates 24 malls in 13 states, said sales of small home appliances like pots and pans as well as coffee makers did well Friday, indicating that people are staying closer to home and are wanting to buy more necessities.

Local shoe retailer J. Sabatini Shoes also had customers target essential items at the store next to Dunham's Sports on state Route 170.

James Sabatini II said he helped customers mainly purchase boots and work-related shoes on Friday.

Sabatini also saw a good sales day overall like the other area retail stores.

"It's been a good day," he said Friday evening, before helping a young woman look for work boots for her father. "We've been pleased with our sales. We're up from last year."

On a national level, preliminary reports from major retailers including Macy's, KB Toys Inc., Best Buy Co. and Toys ''R'' Us and mall operators like Taubman Centers Inc. said the crowds were at least as large as last year's. But analysts said sales Friday may not match the year-ago levels as Americans, worried about layoffs, dwindling retirement accounts, and tightening credit, slash their holiday budgets, even for their own children.

Sales of flat-screen TVs, which had seen a slowdown in recent weeks, were a big attraction, but they were heavily discounted, according to reports from Sears Holdings Corp. and Best Buy Co.

As for traditional toys, Toys ''R'' Us Chief Executive Jerry Storch pointed out that customers were either looking for bargains or the hot, hard-to-find toys like Fisher-Price's Elmo Live and Spin Master Ltd.'s Bakugan. He added that the $139 Spike, a radio-controlled dinosaur from Fisher-Price, was faring well.

Still, while Black Friday isn't a predictor of holiday sales, it's an important barometer of people's willingness to spend for the rest of the season. This year, industry executives are taking note of how the economy is shaping buying habits.

But in the immediate area, store retailers were optimistic and encouraged following the immediate aftermath of Black Friday.

[AP Retail Writer Anne D'Innocenzio contributed to this story]