Sonoma County shoppers again turn out early for Black Friday deals

Shoppers flocked to local retailers this morning looking for deals this holiday season, including some who had already been out surviving the crowds on Thanksgiving Day.

For example, at the Best Buy on Santa Rosa Avenue, Angel Hernandez was waiting in line before the doors opened at 8 a.m. to purchase a Sharp 55-inch LED television on sale for $250 - a price at a 50 percent discount - and a Lenovo laptop computer for $99.

He got at the electronics store at 4:15 a.m. to be one of the first in line. About 250 people were waiting in line before doors opened as staff let in 50 shoppers at a time to avoid overcrowding the store.

This was the second time for waiting in line for Hernandez this week. He had already waited in line beginning at Wednesday 7 a.m. at the same Best Buy to get another television - a 49-inch Toshiba for $200 - that he bought when doors opened at 5 p.m. Thursday.

“It's a tradition for me,” said Hernandez, who has four TVs in his house. “I just keep them all over my house.”

He was joined in line Friday by Joanne Miller of Lake County, who was spending her 13th consecutive year waiting in line at a Best Buy during the Thanksgiving holiday.

She also was in line for the Thursday sale on TVs and had a friend bring her Thanksgiving dinner while she waited and slept in chilly temperatures that reached a low of 34 degrees.

“It was so, so cold. I had leggings, sweats, and a ski suit on, and I was still cold,” Miller said.

On Thursday, by the time the JCPenney at Coddingtown Mall opened at 3 p.m., lines of eager shoppers hundreds strong were gathered outside two separate entrances, waiting their chance to score a good deal at the department store on Thanksgiving Day.

Ushering in the start of chaotic holiday shopping even before many families started carving turkey, the Santa Rosa store attracted throngs of people this year by giving early customers coupons of $10, $100 or even $500 off their purchases.

JCPenney planned to hand out some 2,500 of those coupons on Thanksgiving and about 1,500 at 6 a.m. today, according to store manager Mike Gobble, who estimated at least 1,000 people lined up at opening time.

At the Sephora inside JCPenney, 15-year old Santa Rosa resident Ahtziri Magana was looking for mascara and also had shoes and clothes on her shopping list for the day. She received a $10 coupon after she showed up right at 3 p.m., she said.

“On Thanksgiving, I usually spend the day with my family, but today we decided to start shopping a little earlier, because the stores opened earlier and there's better deals,” Magana said.

One of multiple national chains that have expanded their Black Friday sales into the holiday one day earlier, JCPenney remained open throughout Thanksgiving night and will not close until 10 p.m. today.

Gobble said nearly every store associate was happy to work over the marathon hours, the inconvenience of which was allayed with double-time pay and a feast for employees.

“We try to make it as fun as possible for the associates,” Gobble said. “Customers are important, but we're important to each other, too.”

Thanksgiving and the holiday season in general should be strong for retailers nationwide. The National Retail Federation expects retail sales in the United States to grow 3.6 percent to $655.8 billion in November and December this year, which would put the growth in holiday sales ahead of last year's 3.2 percent increase.

Local economic indicators, including employment and gas prices, give some cause for optimism as well, said Ben Stone, executive director of the Sonoma County Economic Development Board.

But consumers also face a wide range of options on where to shop this holiday season, with online retailers and brick-and-mortar stores all widely advertising bargains no longer confined to just Black Friday. Amazon, for example, kicked off its “More than 35 days of Black Friday Shopping” in mid-November.

“Before the internet, you actually had to go to Macy's and look around,” Stone said. “It was more of a draw when you didn't know what surprises were in store ... There's still deals, but it's more well known.”

Stone predicted “quite a bit” of online shopping among Sonoma County residents but said a lot of people would still take advantage of the ritual to go out and make purchases in person on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Both of those trends were evident at Kmart in Petaluma on Thursday afternoon. The store, which opened at 6 a.m. Thursday and won't close until 10 p.m. today, was processing a particularly high volume of online sales, according to key carrier and pantry lead Linda Thrasher. In-person business remained steady though, particularly for a discounted three-piece comforter set, Thrasher said.

Kmart shopper Yessica Perez, 22, was looking for a new comforter with her 4-year old daughter. Perez appreciated the store being open on Thanksgiving so she could take advantage of deals without having to fight her way through stereotypical Black Friday pandemonium.

“It's full of people and I think it's kind of dangerous for my little one,” Perez said of Black Friday drama, adding that she would rather shop in the daytime than at night.

Not all major national stores followed the lead of JCPenney and Kmart.

Notably, outdoor co-op chain REI, which has a store in Santa Rosa, is again closing all of its nearly 150 stores on Black Friday, processing no online sales and paying all of its more than 12,000 employees to have the day off.

The chain, which was closed on Thanksgiving Day as well, in a statement said it was “stepping up its effort to create a cultural counterweight to Black Friday” and hoped to encourage millions of Americans to spend more time outside.

But the deals on Thanksgiving and the day after remain a draw for many.

As stores prepared to open at Santa Rosa Plaza, Brina Ruoff and her daughter were among a contingent of people waiting outside Ooh La Loft, a Petaluma-based clothing boutique. Ruoff, 44, also of Petaluma, was there to do some Christmas shopping and support a local store, all while partaking in a bonding ritual with her daughter.

“It's a tradition for her and I to go shopping,” she said. “You can get good prices, but it's also something that we do that's fun.”

You can reach Staff Writer J.D. Morris at 707-521-5337 or jd.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @thejdmorris. You can reach Staff Writer Bill Windell at 707-521-5223 or bill.swindell@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @BillSwindell.