Big Predawn Crowds, Doorbuster Prices Mark Another Black Friday

“I think you're going to see retailers putting the pressure on vendors to deliver specific items,” Ray Lastner, general manager of the Best Buy store in Danbury, Conn., told us. Best Buy was promoting a 720p 42W Panasonic plasma TV at $899. The Panasonic 42W “was a special buy just to support the sale today and I think what you're going to see through the holiday season is more and more of those special buys to get the customer to come in or some sort of subsidizing on the back-end.” Lastner’s store quickly sold its allocated 25 Panasonic sets after it opened its doors at 5 a.m. “I'm not making any money” on the Panasonic 42W at the $899 promotional price, Lastner said. “But it’s going to get the customer in the door and hopefully the customer is going to buy everything to get the performance.”

The volatility of plasma TV pricing was Black Friday’s big story a year ago, and there were hints of a repetition throughout our survey area. A P.C. Richard store in Rego Park, Queens, was doing a land-office business selling a Panasonic 42W 720p plasma at $696 -- about $200 less than the similarly featured Panasonic plasma set Best Buy was showcasing. But the big blowout item at P.C. Richard was $799 for an all-day Black Friday special on a 42W Sharp Aquos LCD TV with 720p (model LC42D43U). On the P.C. Richard Web site, the set was listed as out of stock for online purchase the next two to three weeks at $1,299 -- $200 off the regular $1,499. To us, its out-of-stock status for e-commerce’s purposes was a strong sign the chain had allocated all available units of the Sharp 42W for in-store foot traffic.

For the first time, Best Buy this Black Friday used two private labels - Insignia and Dynex -- for flat-panel TVs. Best Buy has used the Dynex brand for accessories, but the company expanded it to AV equipment this year in an effort to gain a competitive edge, Lastner said. During the Black Friday sale, Best Buy positioned a Dynex 37W 720p set at $629, and a similarly featured Insignia 32W model sold for $599. In 19-inch, the Dynex brand was promoted with an HDMI input at $239, and the Insignia version was $50 less.

32W LCD TVs seemed the engine that drove most of the promotional strategies at Connecticut stores we canvassed. Best Buy in Danbury had an Insignia 32W 720p set at $599. Target in nearby Bethel matched that price with a Syntax- Brillian Olevia model. A Wal-Mart store, also in Danbury, fielded a 32W 720p Vizio at $597, and Circuit City had a Series 2 32W Olevia at $479 after $120 in instant “savings.” Target was selling a 37W Olevia at $549 after a $200 two-day price drop, and RadioShack in Ridgefield offered 37W sets at $699 under the Scott and Akai brands, both owned by Grande Holdings. The Scott model required a mail-in rebate. RadioShack also promoted a 720p 32W Scott LCD TV set at $449. Wal-Mart used Sanyo as a promotional brand, selling a 720p- capable 42W at $948 after a $50 price cut. A 50W plasma model with 1365x768 resolution was $1,294, down $100.

At Wal-Mart in Danbury, many of the 32W and 42W sets that lined a main aisle from the store’s front to its back were quickly snapped up by shoppers shortly after a 6 a.m. opening, store staffers said. The cut-rate TVs were matched by sharply discounted DVDs. Wal-Mart dropped 11 “double packs” of DVDs at $12 each, including the Oceans 13 feature film that Wal-Mart bundled with a seven-in-one electronic handheld casino game, said Michael Fontenot, district sales manager at Anderson Merchandisers, which stocks Wal-Mart with DVDs, books and music.

Another promotional highlight was GPS devices. Best Buy in Danbury sold 322 TomTom Ones at $120, down from $249, within an hour of opening on Friday, Lastner said. A UPS truck delivered an additional 38 later in the morning. At Wal-Mart, the promotional leader was the Garmin StreetPilot c330 at $128, which quickly sold 300 units, store staffers said. Mitac’s Mio c220 was offered at Circuit City at $99 after a $100 saving, and RadioShack had Magellan’s Maestro at $129, down $120. “GPS are going to be really strong sellers this season just because there are so many of them, and we have 16 and 17-year-old kids coming in here to buy them for their cars,” said a RadioShack assistant manager at the Ridgefield store.

In videogames, Nintendo’s Wii was in short supply. The GameStop store in Danbury sold 33 units shortly after it opened at 7 a.m., a store staffer said. Best Buy and Target didn’t have any models on hand for Black Friday sales. Best Buy quickly sold 28 units the last time it had inventory, Nov. 18. Target brought in and sold 157 units two weeks ago, the last time it had the Nintendo Wii in stock, a sales associate said. PS3 has sold well in promotions, but otherwise hasn’t been in “high demand,” Best Buy’s Lastner said.

“Store traffic was pretty strong” across the board and there were “lots of lines” at the Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Depot, Staples, Target and Wal-Mart stores that NPD analyst Stephen Baker visited Friday in southeastern Massachusetts, he told Consumer Electronics Daily. He said it was too early to gauge holiday sales trends, but there were “a lot of people out there” despite “a little concern” that many consumers would do much of their holiday shopping online this year. Consumers are “much more likely to buy” various items -- not just the heavily discounted ones -- when they come into a store than they are shopping online, he said.

Consumers at the stores Baker visited were “snapping up” every notebook computer and LCD TV they could find Friday, he said. LCD TVs in 32W, 40W and 42W screen sizes were in the most demand, he said. But when Black Friday sales are tallied, he suspects “the star” will be personal navigation and GPS devices, which all the major retailers seemed to sell out of first, Baker said. “They were everywhere this year” - - not just at electronics stores, but also at sporting goods retailers and department stores, including Kohl’s. A Nextar- branded GPS navigation system with a 3.5-inch LCD touch screen at only $129.99 was among the most popular items at the Kohl’s we visited in Levittown, N.Y., just after 4 a.m., along with a $49.99, Digital Labs-branded portable DVD player with a 7-inch screen. Those items usually sell for $229.99 and $149.99 at Kohl’s, the retailer’s ad circular said. Also popular among customers at the Kohl’s store were digital picture frames, which Baker said he noticed at the stores he visited, too.

Turnout was so strong at the Westbury, N.Y., Circuit City and Carle Place, N.Y., Sixth Avenue Electronics stores we visited that customers remained lined up outside their doors hours after they opened. There was a near-mob scene in the electronics department at the East Meadow, N.Y., Wal-Mart we visited shortly after 5 a.m. -- about ten minutes after the store opened its doors. That store quickly sold out of doorbuster items including a $198 Panasonic DVD camcorder. Also in heavy demand there were a $128.88 Garmin Street Pilot portable GPS system, $79.87 Sony Cyber-shot 7.2-megapixel digital camera and $149 Kodak 7-megapixel digital camera. At least 150 consumers were lined up outside the Levittown, N.Y., Best Buy at 1:30 a.m. -- 90 minutes before the store’s staffers started handing out tickets to buy doorbuster items in limited supply.

Consumers started lining up outside the Westbury Best Buy store between 9 and 10 a.m. Thanksgiving morning, General Manager Peter Conway told us Friday. Black Friday foot traffic this year was “equal to,” if not greater than, the previous Black Friday, he said. Staffers gave out about 800 to 1,000 tickets for doorbusters, he said. In greatest demand were TomTom’s ONE LE portable GPS device for $119.99 (normally $399.99 there), a Sony Vaio laptop with 1 GB of memory and 120-GB hard drive for $399.99 and Dynex 37-inch 720p LCD HDTV at $629.99 (regular price $749.99). There was “no area that really snuck up on us” as being disappointing this time, he said, adding that despite talk of economic woes in the news “people are spending money” and they “came in droves, and they're filling up their carts.” Echoing Baker, Conway said “GPS is bigger this year” than a year ago. Also notable is a growing shift from desktop to laptop computers, he said.

Flying off shelves at the Westbury Best Buy were heavily discounted DVDs, including Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake from Universal at only $2.49, the more recent DVD releases Knocked Up and 300 at only $6.99 each, and all seasons of HBO TV shows on DVD -- including The Sopranos -- at 50 percent off. Pricing on SanDisk memory cards continued to be aggressive, with heavy discounts advertised by Best Buy and its rivals Friday. A standout in that category was a 4-GB Memory Stick Pro Duo at only $34.99. It usually sells for $79.99 at Best Buy.

Selling out along with various doorbusters last week was the new Electronic Arts game Rock Band, Conway told us. The videogame category overall was a hit for the Westbury Best Buy Friday, he said. Although the store didn’t have Nintendo Wii consoles in stock Friday, PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles were selling strong across all SKUs, he said. Stock on Activision’s game Guitar Hero III was “hard to come by,” although -- unlike the EA game -- the store had units on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions in stock, Conway said. Consumers appeared to be making due with that game’s heavily-discounted predecessor, Guitar Hero II. Versions of the older game, bundled with guitar peripherals, could be seen in consumers’ hands exiting that Best Buy and other stores we visited Friday. It is going to be “hard” to keep Guitar Hero III supplies in stock through the holiday season, Conway added.

GameStop appeared to be one of the few major retailers with Wii consoles in stock when its stores opened Friday. There were about 10 to 15 customers lined up outside the Levittown GameStop shortly after 5 a.m. -- nearly two hours before the store opened. GameStop and Trans World Entertainment’s f.y.e. were among the few retailers that advertised the system in their Black Friday ad circulars. Like GameStop, f.y.e. indicated supplies would be limited, but didn’t say about how many would be available at each location Friday.

This Black Friday was the first in which CE retailers operated under an FCC order that has required them since May 25 to affix labels to analog-only TVs at the point of sale warning consumers that they won’t work after the February 2009 cutoff without a DTV converter box or satellite or cable set-top. Hundreds of stores have been slapped with FCC citations for failing to comply.

Anecdotal evidence suggested many analog-only TV sets remained in the retail pipeline before Black Friday. We were curious to see whether stores would dump them amid the frenzy and comply with the labeling order if they did. But we saw none of that in the stores we visited. One oddity we did observe was at a Sears store in Rego Park, just down the block from the P.C. Richard location we cited earlier. Sears was merchandising “limited quantities” of a Sharp 32-inch CRT-based TV set (model 32SF56B) at $399, or $100 off the regular $499 price. The set has dual ATSC and NTSC tuning -- as the outside packaging says -- and so requires no label under the FCC order.

Still, someone at Sears had incorrectly taped makeshift warning labels -- and looked as if they had done so hastily - - to each of the several boxes stacked in the aisles of the TV department saying the sets won’t work after February 2009. Sears received about two dozen FCC citations in May and June for noncompliance with the labeling order. Whether the chain was leaving nothing to chance or the labels were put there by an untrained salesperson was hard to say. Seeking a salesperson or department manager for explanation was impossible, as the staff had its hands full dealing with the hundreds of consumers lining up to pay for flat-panel TVs and other CE merchandise.

Analog-only labeling wasn’t the only source of imperfect store execution. The P.C. Richard store in Carle Place, N.Y., was merchandising a stack of $129 Sony DVP-NC85HB DVD players. A sign on top of the stack erroneously identified the Sony decks as “HD DVD players.” Anyone could have walked away with the false impression that Sony had joined the HD DVD camp. P.C. Richard apparently threw the “HD” letters on the stack to tout the DVP-NC85HB’s capability to upconvert regular DVDs to 1080i and 720p through an HDMI output.

As with past Black Fridays, abundant predawn crowds were the name of the game this year. In suburban Hartsdale, N.Y., we counted about 1,200 shoppers awaiting the 5 a.m. opening at Best Buy with temperatures near freezing. Those at the head of the line told us they'd arrived before midnight, and blankets, sleeping bags and folding chairs were abundant.

They had been lured by doorbusters that included a Panasonic 42W 720p plasma TV at $899.99 and Dynex 32W LCD TV at $300 off the regular $749.99 price -- the same Best Buy specials we observed at the Danbury location. PC bargains included a Sony laptop with 15.4W screen, 120 GB hard drive and 1 GB of RAM at $399.99, or $350 off list, and an eMachines desktop with 17W LCD monitor and Canon multifunction printer at $199.97. For videogamers, the $349.99 Xbox 360 came bundled with the hit Guitar Hero II game and guitar-style controller, valued at $89.99. The scene was orderly. Best Buy personnel had adequate admission tickets on hand even for stragglers arriving at 4:30 a.m. As at other Westchester stores we checked, local police were present along with mall security.

Things were quieter at a Kmart in nearby White Plains, where only a dozen shoppers shivered as they awaited the 6 a.m. opening. But Kmart had seen its mob on Thanksgiving, when an estimated 2,000 customers formed a 300-yard queue by 5 a.m. for the store’s 7 a.m. opening.

Like Wal-Mart, Kmart opened on the holiday to take some dollars out of the market before Black Friday. For some of those attending Kmart’s barn-burner, the attraction was in- store-only availability of a 32W Olevia LCD TV discounted to $419.99 from its regular $699.99 price at the chain. All 100 sets in stock sold out immediately, the store’s exhausted- looking CE department manager told us at 9 a.m. At that hour, sale-priced but more expensive 37W LCD TVs were still available in quantity, as were the 20-inch Sylvania SDTV/DVD flat-screen CRT 480i combos at $199.99 -- all ATSC tuning models.

A Sylvania 20W LCD TV at $197 was Kmart’s only in-store CE doorbuster on Black Friday, discounted $100 from the usual price. But the chain offered extensive online sales, including a 32W Sylvania LCD TV at $250 off the usual $699.99 sticker. Kmart was a model citizen in complying with the FCC’s edict that any analog-only TVs or receiving equipment carry the Commission’s Feb. 17, 2009 expiration notice. It didn’t have to. As at all suburban Westchester stores we visited, there wasn’t an analog TV or recorder in sight. At all outlets, even small-screen kid-vid TVs and combos had ATSC tuners. All DVD recorders, and all DVD-player/VCR combos, were tuner-less wonders. Prominent notices on the product packaging and retailer’s signs informed consumers that the devices have “No Tuner” or “Require external tuner or cable/satellite receiver” or “For Input Recording Only.”

At a Staples Superstore in a nearby strip mall in Elmsford, N.Y., a dozen would-be shoppers mustered at 5 a.m. By the 6 a.m. opening, the number had swelled to an overflow crowd of hundreds who'd given up on Best Buy’s doorbusters and hustled to the Staples about a quarter-mile away. Staples’ CE offerings were modest compared with other chains’. The highlight was a 32W Envision LCD HDTV at $449.98, cut $450 from the usual price. Next on deck was a 42W Envision LCD at $1,299.98, a $550 discount. For the chain’s more PC-oriented clientele, a 17W Acer LCD monitor sold for $89.98, a $100 discount, and a Compaq laptop with 15.4-inch screen and decent specs reduced to $349.98 from $749.98.

“It was a madhouse,” the store manager told us. “From absolutely nobody outside when we were setting up, out of nowhere hundreds of people show up and are banging on the windows to get in. We nearly had a security issue here. We almost had to call the cops, but didn’t. These people were desperate for a deal.” When we checked again at 10 a.m., all of Staples’ supply of on-sale HDTVs of any size and PCs were gone. A few Acer PC monitors remained unsold, and the store extended the sale price to anyone who wanted one.