By Melissa Fares
NEW YORK (Reuters) - From Walmart (NYSE:WMT) Inc to Best Buy, retailers have overhauled Black Friday shopping, assigning clerks in orange vests to serve as traffic cops, taking shoppers' temperatures and offering "grab-and-go" merchandise, including toys, bikes and kitchen appliances to discourage lingering in store aisles.
Most major retailers closed on Thanksgiving Day this year in a nod to the stress endured by their workers during a global health pandemic. Walmart opened stores at 5 a.m. on Friday, directing shoppers to turn right upon entering and proceed along main aisles to shop deals before paying at registers surrounded by plastic barriers.
Best Buy opened at 5 a.m. and Target , which introduced contactless self-checkout and doubled the number of parking spots for its contactless “Drive Up” pick-up service this holiday season opened at 7 a.m.
Traditionally, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, has launched the holiday shopping season in the United States, with retailers offering steep discounts and turning a significant profit.
Shoppers with empty carts lined up a socially-distant six feet apart before the Walmart in LaGrange, Kentucky opened, but crowds appeared down overall. Stores selling popular computer game consoles had some of the longest lines as die-hard gamers tried to land Sony Corp's PlayStation 5.
Brothers-in-law Gabriel Rojas, 24 and Juan Cabrera, 24 were waiting in line at GameStop (NYSE:GME) in New York's Bronx borough, since 2 a.m. on Friday, hopeful to snatch up a PS5. They were unsuccessful as there were some 20 people ahead of them and the retailer only had two left in stock, they said.
“We're bummed” said Rojas. “But that’s ok.”
During this pandemic-ridden year, major retailers from Target Corp (NYSE:TGT) to Kohl’s Corp and Walmart rolled out online winter holiday promotions in October to capture any holiday-related spending as early as possible.
Overall, the National Retail Federation (NRF) forecasts U.S. holiday retail sales will increase between 3.6% and 5.2% over 2019, for a total of $755.3 billion to $766.7 billion. That compares with an average annual increase of 2.5% over the past five years.
A Walmart spokeswoman said the world’s largest retailer was not selling traditional “hot-ticket doorbuster" items in stores this Black Friday. But even as health officials around the globe encouraged people to stay home and shop online, Walmart set aside some deals only for shoppers who came into its stores—advertising items including "in-store only" savings on $5 packs of Wonder Nation’s girls' and boys' underwear and socks. The spokeswoman declined to comment on the ads.
Lindsey Cox, 43, of Thomasville, North Carolina, said she noticed Walmart’s advertised in-store price for Christmas gnomes was much lower than on Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN). But she said she doesn’t plan to visit Walmart stores on Black Friday.
"I could not justify going into the store right now," the stay-at-home mother of three said. The savings is "not worth the trade-off" of potentially being exposed to coronavirus, she said.
On Nov. 19, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deemed "going shopping in crowded stores just before, on, or after Thanksgiving" as a high-risk activity.
More than half of U.S. shoppers expect to shop online on Black Friday, despite 75% of consumers taking advantage of seasonal sales, which started earlier this year, an Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) Analytics survey predicts.
However, 55% of consumers reported that sales on the Black Friday weekend feel less special due to promotions in the run up to the event, according to Adobe.
Adobe expects Thanksgiving Day to come in below $6 billion in total sales, with Black Friday set to cross $10 billion in sales.
The volume of Black Friday payment transactions in Britain as of 0900 GMT was down 13.2% versus last year, initial data from Barclaycard showed, with retailers of non-essential goods still shut and many in the sector spreading out online discounts throughout the month.
The end of England's second national lockdown on Dec. 2 is predicted to see a surge in transactions, surpassing Black Friday, Barclaycard, which processes nearly one pound ($1.33) in every three pounds spent in the United Kingdom, said.
