Heavily Advertised Gear Sold Most Black Friday, NPD Says

PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 consoles were all sold “pretty well,” especially in bundles, Baker said. Guitar Hero and Rock Band games “maybe didn’t sell as fast as some of the other products -- it looked like they were still on the shelves,” he said. “All the flat panels were selling very strongly,” especially 22-, 26-, 32- and 40-inch models, and computer departments were “packed with people,” he said. It was hard to tell which computers were most in demand, but desktops attracted the least interest, he said.

Movies were also top sellers, especially at Wal-Mart, where cardboard displays containing the lowest-priced advertised titles “were just wiped out” after a couple of hours, he said. Lines were “very similar to last year -- maybe a little bit busier, but not much,” Baker said. Best Buy, Micro Center, Target and Wal-Mart stores seemed especially busy, he said. “There were still lines at Best Buy an hour after opening,” and “there were lots and lots of people milling about before they were able to buy” products at Wal-Mart, which was open all night but didn’t make door- buster items available until 5 a.m., he said.

Security and news media were everywhere at Wal-Mart’s Valley Stream, N.Y., store when we visited before 5 a.m. Black Friday. This was the store where a temporary employee was trampled to death last Black Friday when shoppers rushed the front door just before its 5 a.m. opening. This year, crowds braved a drizzle and temperatures in the 40s to seek out doorbuster bargains. They were generally well-behaved. Guards were letting shoppers in in small groups all night, but even so, lines snaked through special barricades -- missing last year - and stretched around the store and into the large parking lot as far as the eye could see.

Supervising the crowds were about a dozen Nassau County police officers and 30 Wal-Mart security guards we observed stationed in front. A Wal-Mart employee who identified himself as Benjamin told us a great many more security people were inside the store, but he didn’t know how many. News trucks from at least three local TV stations were parked in front of the store, beaming live feeds to early-morning news shows.

As another safety measure, Wal-Mart, which remained open on Thanksgiving and through the night, began in the wee hours Friday doling out first-come, first-served tickets for its biggest door-buster specials, including the Magnavox NB500MG1F Blu-ray player for $78. Those who got tickets were told to pay for the merchandise and return to the store after 5 a.m. to pick it up. Family members and friends arrived at 5 a.m. to relieve some who had braved the wait from 4 a.m. and earlier. We surmised that one reason why the crowds at 5 a.m. were so much more patient than last year was that many standing in line already had ticket in hand and had already landed their doorbuster bargains.

Indeed, no crowd control problems were reported by any of the Long Island retailers we polled Friday and we saw none at stores we visited there. Besides the Valley Stream Wal- Mart store, we visited the Farmingdale store in Suffolk County, where a woman was injured last Black Friday. Crowds were out in force again at the Farmingdale store when we visited about 10 a.m. Products that seemed to be moving the fastest included Wii accessories and games. Multiple titles -- even lesser-known games including Disney’s Toy Story Mania -- flew off the shelves, thanks to bargain-basement prices of $7 and $10 on many. DVDs at $2, $5 and $9, including the $9 Star Trek, were also moving quickly, along with several $10 Blu-ray movies including Harry Potter titles. Wal-Mart advertised an 8-inch digital picture frame in its ad circular at only $29 without naming the manufacturer. It turned out to be a frame from GiiNii. A customer was seen with three of them in her shopping cart. The East Meadow, New York, Wal- Mart was quiet when we passed it at 3:30 a.m. But it had become impossible to find parking about 7 a.m.

The computer department was especially busy at the Best Buy store in Levittown, N.Y. EMachines and Toshiba models were among the best sellers, said General Manager Allan Crohn. A promotion that “worked out OK” was an Apple MacBook with a $150 gift card for $999.99, he said. The store had a special line for computer purchases and it remained long at 8 a.m., three hours after the store opened. Dynex and Samsung models were among the flat-panel TV best sellers, he said.

Best Buy featured a $299.99, 32-inch Dynex 720p LCD TV and a $1,599, 46-inch Samsung 1080p LED-backlit LCD TV on the front page of its Black Friday ad circular as door-busters, and those were among the best sellers. PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 consoles were selling, too. But Crohn said the DSi handheld system wasn’t moving very briskly, although the retailer threw in a $20 gift card with the system at its usual $169.99 price. Console packages popular Friday included a PS3 door- buster bundle with a 120-GB console and two games for $299.99. Best Buy said the merchandise would cost $419.97 bought separately. The store was sold out of The Beatles: Rock Band before Friday and not many other Rock Band titles seemed to be moving that day.

Another strong seller was a door-buster Garmin Nuvi 205w that Best Buy was selling at $99.99, $100 off its usual price, Crohn said. Advertised Blu-ray and DVD movies were also in heavy demand, especially TV show seasons including Smallville at $9.99 and various others at $14.99 that he said were “flying out the door.” About 350 customers were lined up outside the store about 2 a.m. and the number grew to about 600-700 people by 4 a.m., he said. It took us 50 minutes to get into the store after we arrived about 5 a.m. Lines inside the store, other than in the computer section, had thinned by about 8 a.m., possibly thanks in part to the retailer’s decision to open all the store’s cash registers.

About 300 customers were lined up outside the Target store in Farmingdale, N.Y., when that store opened at about 5 a.m., Store Team Leader Vincent Scavone told us. Many customers were looking for the DSi with a $20 gift card for $169.99, he said. Xbox 360 bundles at $299.99 and $399.99 were also strong sellers -- especially the higher-priced one, which came with the popular Activision game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, he said. DVDs at $3.99 were also popular, as well as Blu-ray movies at $8.99 and $12.99, he said. Best-selling TVs included a 32-inch Westinghouse 720p LCD model for $246, featured on the front page of the retailer’s ad circular, which “sold out in minutes,” and a 40-inch Apex 1080p LCD model for $449, he said. Western Digital hard drives at $59.98 were also popular, and so were GPS devices including a TomTom XL340S with a case for $97, he said.

Turnout was strong -- “at least what we did last year” - - at several GameStop stores, Chris Levenberg, district manager of the retailer’s western Long Island stores, told us. He was at the Roosevelt Field Mall store in Garden City, N.Y., when the company’s stores opened and there was a line of “probably about 50-60 people” waiting outside, he said. That’s “about the same” as last year, he said. PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 consoles were all “moving very briskly,” as were used games and accessories, he said. In handheld systems, his stores were “doing very well” with the Nintendo DSi. But the new PSPgo was “not moving very quickly,” he said, adding that it’s “a different type of market” and “a lot of customers aren’t really accustomed to the digital download market yet.” Among music videogames, Activision’s DJ Hero was the strongest seller, he said. He said the best-selling videogames overall were Nintendo’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead from Electronic Arts and Microsoft’s Halo 3: ODST. GameStop stores we visited in Farmingdale and Levittown had few customers after 10 a.m., and they were gravitating toward used games.

At the Wal-Mart store in Danbury, Conn., Black Friday was much more orderly than in years past because the store was open 24 hours, said a security guard who asked not to be identified. Consumers began streaming into the store when the sales started at 5 a.m. Friday, but before that it was “so quiet you could hear a pin drop,” the security guard said. Lines snaked around Wal-Mart’s CE department where a half-dozen security guards were stationed to keep order. Some disputes broke out over customers’ positions in the line, but generally the crowd was well-behaved for having to wait about 45 minutes to check out.

Similar precautions were taken at Target and Best Buy, but with slightly different strategies. At Target, store staffers positioned shopping carts stocked with 60 to 70 40- inch Apex Digital 1080p-equipped ($449) and Westinghouse 32- inch 720p ($246) LCD TVs at the front of store for quick checkout, a store staffer said. Both models sold out within the first hour, he said. At Best Buy in Danbury, where the first customer began waiting outside the store at 9:30 a.m. Thanksgiving morning, the store hired local police to insure order in a line of about 200 people, all whom received tickets for sale items at 3 a.m. Friday, Ray Lastner, general manager of the Danbury store, told us.

“Last year we had some problems in the parking lot with people rushing the line, but this year we didn’t have chaos” because of the extra security precautions, said Lastner, who said he arrived at the store just after midnight Friday morning. “The customers get a little edgy with all the waiting, but when you explain to them how it’s set up and what you are doing, I think for the most part 99.9 percent really understand what’s being done.”

Costco was relatively empty, presumably because it didn’t publicize that it would open an hour early at 9 a.m. Friday, store staffers said. Costco also positioned its Black Friday specials near the store entrance, allowing customers to quickly grab the products and head to the register. They include a Vizio 55W LCD TV at $1,149 after $300 rebate and a Vizio Blu-ray player at $99 after a $40 rebate. “Everybody was here largely for the TV or the Blu- ray player,” although Costco also was promoting an 8 GB Apple iPod Nano at $129 after a $10 coupon, a store staffer said. The closest competitors came to the $129 Costco Nano price was around $145, although Best Buy was offering a $30 gift card on a model priced at $159.

As was the case last year, 32-inch and 40-inch LCD TVs were the promotional product of choice at most retailers. Wal-Mart’s promoting of a Funai-made 32-inch Emerson brand 720p LCD TV at $248 had dozens of customers stuffing the set into their shopping carts. Best Buy hit $299 after $50 in “savings” on its private-label Dynex 32-inch, while RadioShack had an AOC brand model at $329, down from $399. Best Buy had a one-time buy on a Samsung 500 series 40-inch LCD TV that was priced at $597 and the Danbury store quickly sold through its allotment of 70 units, replacing it with a 40-inch Sony model, Lastner said. “The 40s have always been a strong sellers because when you think about optimal viewing in your standard living room that’s probably the biggest demand size, while 32s” more popular for the bedrooms,” Lastner said.

Samsung’s 46-inch LED-backlit LCD TV also was highlighted at Best Buy where the price was cut $1,000 to $1,599 for Black Friday. Best Buy’s Danbury store sold through the 22 units it had largely because “anyone waiting in line for a TV seemed to be” seeking the LED model, Lastner said.

As expected, Blu-ray players also were a promotion product of choice with $78 setting a low-end benchmark for a Magnavox model, about 40 of which were stacked on a pallet along the center aisle at Wal-Mart. Best Buy promoted its private-label Insignia player at $99, leaving stacks of 150 to 200 each of Sony and Samsung BD-P1600 models unsold despite retailing for $129 and $149. Sales of Sony and Samsung models at the Danbury store were expected to pick up once early Black Friday mania wore off, Lastner said. Target carried the same Sony model, the purchase of which included a $20 gift card. And Bernie’s TV Appliance and More was promoting LG’s LBD270 at $99, down from $169.

This year’s Black Friday also marked the first since Circuit City, Sound’s Incredible and Tweeter Home Entertainment all shut stores along a one-mile stretch on Danbury Road in Danbury that’s also home to Best Buy. The three closed stores probably generated a combined $23 million in annual revenue with the Circuit location taking in $18 million, Lastner said. “It’s hard to say what I'm picking up” in the way of sales as a result of the store closings because of the U.S. economic crisis, but “I am picking up something” despite competition from Bernie’s, Target and Wal-Mart, Lastner said.

Sales of e-readers seemed slow at Best Buy and Staples as customers were uncertain where to buy e-books for them, staffers at both stores said. Staples and Best Buy are both carrying the Sony Reader Pocket ($199) and Touch ($299). Staples placed the Sony Reader on an end cap between printers and scanners, while Best Buy had them in its new “gifts and gadgets” section near the front of the store. “People like the units, but they're not sure where to buy the books and right now its slow-going for them,” a Staples store staffer said.

Among the categories still hanging on at RadioShack were DTV convertor boxes. A RadioShack store in Danbury had the DigitalStream model priced at $59. RadioShack also trimmed the retail on its Gigaware private-label micro-projector to $99 from $199. The projector, which uses a 0.44-inch HiMax LCoS microdisplay, contained 640x480 resolution and 10 lumens.

At the GameStop store in Danbury, used PS2 consoles priced at $39 greeted shoppers at the front entrance and store staffers reported $4,000 in sales in the first two hours. The store opened at 4 a.m. Friday, but customers didn’t start arriving until a half-hour later when some stopped in on their way to a nearby Wal-Mart, a store manager said.

Although Wal-Mart remained open overnight, the waiting line at 4 a.m. stretched farther than we could see at the store in downtown White Plains, north of New York City. Like last year, police directed drivers away from the standalone store’s multilevel parking garage, which was full. A garage across the street, in a mall that houses a Target store, also was full. The line outside there was thin, so it’s likely that garage took the overflow from Wal-Mart. Among Target’s CE doorbusters was a Westinghouse 32-inch 720p LCD, part of the company’s eco-conscious “Greenvue” line and priced at $246 compared with its $430 MSRP.

At the Best Buy in nearby Hartsdale, we counted more than 1,000 shoppers waiting for the store’s 5 a.m. opening. The line wrapped around to the back of the store, about a tenth of a mile, where a few parking spots were left. Coupons for the chain’s doorbusters were long gone, distributed by the store’s personnel just after 3 a.m. to the early-birds at the head of the line. The crowd was orderly, staffers told us. Given the number of shoppers waiting compared with the coupons available, customers likely were interested in bargains other than the doorbusters, which included the PS3 with 120-GB hard drive at $299.99, and a 32- inch 720p LCD from the chain’s Dynex-brand at $299.99. A same-size Dynex set sold for $399.99 in last year’s Black Friday promotion (CED Dec 1 p4). On a return visit at 8 a.m., there still was little parking and the store was packed, with long lines at the registers.

Lines were thin and parking ample at a shopping center nearby where GameStop and RadioShack are located. RadioShack’s 5:30 a.m. doorbusters included an AOC Envision 22-inch 720p LCD at $199.99, and a Kodak 12-megapixel camera for $99.99. The chain also offered a Polaroid Pogo portable printer free after $60 in rebates with the purchase of any digital camera above $89.99. The draw for GameStop’s 6 a.m. opening included an Xbox 360 Elite bundle with two games at $299.99, and the 120-GB PS3 with three games at the same price. Things were quiet at the Staples down the road in Elmsford before its 6 a.m. opening, where a few dozen shoppers waited for specials that included Hewlett-Packard laptops at $299.99 and $399.99 after $300 in rebates.