Black Friday faithful in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City lament changes

Six years ago — as junior high schoolers in Iowa City — Riley Hulsebus and Annie Belding started taking on Black Friday together, bumping elbows with throngs of shoppers in the holiday-hyped crowds.

Now in college and home for Thanksgiving, the teens are continuing the tradition, with their moms in tow. But, while sitting in a largely empty food court in the Coral Ridge Mall, they noted a Black Friday shift.

'Now it's actually less crowded,' Hulsebus said about the shopping scene at 5 a.m. 'Every year I feel like it's less crowded.'

Black Friday's recent encroachment on Thanksgiving — with big players like Target, Kmart, Kohl's, Wal-Mart and Best Buy opening at 6 p.m. Thursday — has dispersed the deal-seeking night owls. In some cases, retailers now start their Black Friday sales events even earlier — days in advance.

And then there's the online 'crowds.' Virtual U.S. consumers spent more than $1 billion online in a five-hour stretch Thursday, a 22 percent increase from last year, according to the Adobe Digital Index, which tracks sales at 4,500 websites.

And early accounts from retailers pointed to record-breaking shopping via mobile device for this Thanksgiving-into-Black Friday period, according to media reports.

Running in the background to these changing habits are expectations shoppers will be more cautious with their spending this season. The National Retail Federation is expecting holiday sales to rise 3.7 percent, slower than last year's 4.1 percent growth rate.

And yet thousands still flood the stores and malls Friday, on what has become the unofficial launch to the holiday shopping season. But Hulsebus and Belding said they feel heading out pre-dawn has become the calmest time to bargain hunt.

'I can actually shop better when it's less crowded,' Hulsebus said, still lamenting the loss of some of the hype and energy.

'It used to be better people-watching,' Belding said.

Either way, for the pair, Black Friday is less about the deals and more about the tradition of heading out together and sharing the experience.

'It's the perfect opportunity for us to get together and catch up,' Belding said. 'And you get really good sleep when you go home.'

'She loves it'

Before reaching 10 years old, Alina Merlak and her mom, Lori Merlak, would wake up well before dawn and hit the Black Friday sales — sometimes searching deals and mapping out a plan. Sometimes winging it.

They, as a family, frequently host international students and like to expose them to the craziness of the U.S. shopping binge. Three years ago, Alina — now 14 — started inviting her friends to join the Black Friday tour.

'They have so much fun,' Lori Merlak said. 'She loves it.'

While dining on bagels, fried rice, and orange chicken in the Coral Ridge Mall food court before dawn Friday, the group said they, too, have noticed Black Friday crowds dissipating.

'This whole Thursday thing has ruined Black Friday,' Alina said with a smile, clearly still enjoying herself.

With many stores now open all night, Merlak and the girls this year left their Mount Vernon homes just after 1:30 a.m. Friday and hit Kohl's first. Alina looked up store times before they departed and directed the shoppers to their next opening. By 7 a.m., the group had landed the deals they'd been seeking without battling the crowds they anticipated later in the day — which, they said, wasn't all bad.

And Athena Perez, the Merlak family's 24-year-old international visitor this year, said she was intrigued by the whole Black Friday push.

'It makes me think of Boxing Day,' said Perez, from Melbourne, Australia. 'It's the day after Christmas, when people are pushing each other out of the way.'

'Different, but fun'

Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids also was mostly quiet at 6 a.m. Friday — shoppers and store employees said the big rush had come the night before.

'We had good business last night,' said mall general manager Kerry Sanders. 'It's been pretty calm throughout the day today.'

Online shopping also has taken a slice out of the early Black Friday crowds, he said.

'I think maybe the Internet this year is yesterday's window shopping,' Sanders said. 'We have very informed customers.'

Angela Carr, of Walford, was among those at Lindale Mall early Friday. She brought her daughter Emily Carr, 16, and two friends — foreign exchange students at Prairie High School in Cedar Rapids — to experience the American tradition.

'It's been fun,' said Chris Roenningen, of Norway. 'Different, but fun.'

The group started shopping at 3 a.m. Friday, but Carr also commented on the change in Black Friday.

'We used to like it when it started at 4 a.m. and there was the mad rush,' she said. 'But we won't come out on Thanksgiving.'

'This is a tradition'

Some will, though.

At 6:30 a.m. Friday, Rachelle Akerson of Oxford Junction, her mother, Nancy Hartman of Maquoketa, and Akerson's future daughter-in-law, Ashley Meadows of Cedar Rapids, had been shopping since about 5 p.m. Thursday.

They broke for a two-hour nap before heading back out, and — with Akerson's husband on driving duty early Friday waiting for them in the parking lot of Lindale Mall — they plotted their next steps.

'It's the thrill of the chase,' Akerson said. 'We love those bargains. It's an adrenaline rush when you're out in Wal-Mart at 3 in the morning.'

Hartman said the family has been going Black Friday shopping together for years, and diffused sales and smaller crowds won't change that.

'This is a tradition for us,' she said.

'Quite a bit different'

Megan Courtney, of Cedar Rapids, took a break Friday morning in Lindale Mall's mostly empty food court with boyfriend Jeremy Olmstead, of Cedar Rapids, and their friend Cameron de Kruif, of Iowa City. The trio was discussing where to go for breakfast after a long night — they started about midnight. And they critiqued the way sales were structured this year.

'It's quite a bit different,' Courtney said. 'Now it's like the sales start at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving. We got to Wal-Mart this morning, and they were already pulling things off the shelves.'

But that didn't stop them from powering through seven hours of shopping.

'You can still get good deals,' she said.

'The perfect time to shop'

Giggling in the movie aisle at the Coralville Target early Friday, Teresa Grammatke, 40, and her two sisters said they don't mind snagging some of the deals. But they're in it for the fun — and freedom.

'Our parents watch the kids,' she said. 'That's how it started, actually.'

Grammatke, of Chicago, is back in town for the holidays with her sisters Melissa Thornton, of Des Moines, and Sarah Nuss, of Austin, Minn. Combined, they have six kids ages 6 to 11 — including three 8-year-olds. And, they said, the cousins often want what the other ones get.

'It's nice to shop so they all get the same thing,' Nuss said.

The crew reminisced of early Black Fridays spent battling crowds and avoiding lines snaking through the mall.

'Now this is the perfect time to shop, if you can get up,' Nuss said of the early Friday scene.

'It's kind of peaceful,' Thornton said.

Eventually, the trio's husbands meet up with their shopping-soldier wives for a meal.

'That is most of it,' Thornton said. 'More than the deals — the breakfast is key.'

Reuters contributed to this report.