NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shoppers headed out to stores across the United States in a quest to score the best Black Friday discounts on everything from handbags to 4K TVs, with early promotions marking the start of a condensed holiday shopping season.
People wait in line to pay for purchases at Best Buy during a sales event on Thanksgiving day in Westbury, New York, U.S., November 28, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
The following are quotes from shoppers and store managers in the midst of America’s biggest shopping day.
DICK DOYLE, 76, SHOPPING AT MODELL’S SPORTING GOODS IN VIRGINIA:
“I will come to the mall, look at prices and go back and check them online. Prices and discounts online are competitive to what’s available in stores.”
JAY SMITH, 28, SHOPPING AT MACY’S (M.N) IN PENTAGON CITY:
“I think there were some good deals but overall the discounts are similar to what we have seen in the past.”
EVAN HOUSER, 22, ELECTRONICS SALESMAN AT TARGET (TGT.N) IN DOWNTOWN CHICAGO:
“It’s slow now because we had a big, big rush last night – we had a line around the block from like 4:30.”
RACHEL BOOKMAN, 33, SHOPPING AT BANANA REPUBLIC:
“The deals are the same online and frankly there are more of them online, so the question increasingly is why come to the mall at all?”
JUNE MORALES, 25, SHOPPING AT ZARA IN CHICAGO:
“I like to try stuff on – a lot of sizes don’t fit me and I hate returns online, they require an extra step with the shipping and all.”
ANTHONY WRIGHT JR, 26, SHOPPING AT BEST BUY (BBY.N) IN CHICAGO:
“We literally drove by at 2 o’clock after looking at YouTube videos of people sleeping outside. There weren’t really a lot of people so we went back home and came back around six.”
SERGE MENENG, 48, SHOPPING AT COSTCO (COST.O) IN VIRGINIA
“I came in to Costco this morning, hoping to get a good deal on a Canon camera I have been wanting to buy and I checked the price online versus in-store and it was better here.”
Reporting by Melissa Fares, Andrew Kelly and Shannon Stapleton in New York, Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, Richa Naidu in Chicago and Nandita Bose in Washington; Additional reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Zieminski, Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Maju Samuel