By Siddharth Cavale, Arriana McLymore, James Davey, Helen Reid
NORTH BERGEN, N.J./RALEIGH, N.C./LONDON (Reuters) -As retailers reopened their U.S. stores after the American Thanksgiving holiday, some locations found small clusters of early Black Friday shoppers waiting outside stores for exclusive merchandise, such as Taylor Swift's new $39.99 Eras Tour book sold only at Target (NYSE:TGT) stores.
But several East Coast big-box store locations and shopping malls were relatively quiet before 9 a.m. Eastern on Black Friday.
Hoss Moss, a 58-year-old chef from New Jersey, stood outside a Target store for the first time in 15 years to buy the Taylor Swift Eras Tour book for his teenage daughter.
"Black Friday is just not what it used to be," he said.
"Grocery prices are expensive and ... even clothing is not at a price you would get before." He said his family of four plans to spend $2,000 to $3,000 on gifts this year, mostly at Macy's (NYSE:M) and Lululemon.
In the U.S., Walmart (NYSE:WMT) which operates 4,700 U.S. stores, this year is offering a variety of deals on Samsung (KS:005930) TVs, Dyson vacuum cleaners, Lego and Hot Wheels toys, Levi's jeans, and air fryers, although its pre-Black Friday discounts began on Nov. 11.
Cristal Lopez was browsing the aisles of a North Bergen, New Jersey, Walmart Supercenter, which was relatively empty at 7 a.m. Walmart employees were milling about, organizing merchandise and getting ready for the day.
Pushing a full cart of items of clothing and a couple of sling tote bags, Lopez said she was looking for holiday clothes for her two kids. She said she will spend about $1,000 to $2,000 total - same as last year - buying mostly clothing. “I find the prices pretty much same as last year,” she said, adding that she still had some shopping to do to finish her holiday list.
Shoppers are expected to buy more merchandise using mobile phones and laptops on Black Friday. U.S. shoppers are expected to spend $10.8 billion online, up nearly 10% from a year ago, according to projections from Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) Analytics, which keeps track of devices that use Adobe's software to help power more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites.
People looking to upgrade their TVs are expected to find the best deals on Black Friday, with discounts peaking at 24% off listed price, according to Adobe's analysis of online prices.
Still, the U.S. retail trade group the National Retail (NYSE:NNN) Federation expects roughly 85.6 million shoppers to visit stores this year, up from 76 million last year. Shoppers have only 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, against a more leisurely 31 days last year.
Evelyn Contre, 49, waited in a 20-person line at a Lululemon store with her two daughters. Contre had already browsed the websites of Abercrombie (N:ANF) and Lululemon on Thursday for Black Friday deals before heading into Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday.
'SPONTANEOUS PURCHASES'
Adding pressure for retailers is inflation-fatigued shoppers' reluctance to splurge unless they get good deals.
Target cut prices by $100 on products such as a 75-inch Westinghouse TV and Nintendo Switch gaming console, and took more than 50% off Barbie dolls, Keurig coffee machines and KitchenAid mixers, deals which started on Thanksgiving and run through Saturday.
The retailer is selling exclusive "Wicked"-related products, including "Wicked" soundtrack CDs for $39.99, with an offer of buy two, get one free for Target Circle members.
"With fewer days to shop, consumers are more likely to make spontaneous purchases, contributing to retail growth during the holiday season," said Marshal Cohen, chief retail adviser at Circana.
Shoppers spent a record $6.1 billion online on Thanksgiving, up 8.8% from a year earlier, according to Adobe. Growth in Thanksgiving online spending outpaced last year when it rose 5.5%, driven by big discounts across the board including toys and electronics, Adobe said.
In Europe and the UK, shoppers were similarly looking for Black Friday deals. British department store John Lewis (JO:LEWJ) was offering reductions of up to 300 pounds on Samsung TVs, 210 pounds off Nespresso coffee machines and up to 50 pounds off Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) merchandise.