Black Friday is a day? A week? A month?
Hard to say anymore, but it still kicks off the holiday selling season and is a major draw for retailers in Orange County and nationally with Adobe Analytics reporting U.S. consumers opened their wallets to drive a collective $7.4 billion on Black Friday and another $9.4 billion on Cyber Monday—even as the fundamentals of how, why and where consumers shop continue to shift.
Steven Craig, founder and CEO of Newport Beach outlet center developer Craig Realty Group, called it a cultural change retailers and brands are responding to, more than simply reactions to the impact of online shopping.
“Our customers changed a lot since the original, regional mall of the ’50s and ’60s,” Craig said. “People had more time and people had more freedom. It’s a little more complicated than just the internet. Online sales, there’s no question a good chunk of it’s going there, but the economy’s grown a lot. Yet, some of these companies you’re not seeing the sales bump with that.”
Local shopping centers are responding with tactics on multiple fronts including first-to-market tenants, planning for continued surges in ridesharing, more Instagrammable or other experiential moments to lengthen visits and, of course, heavy retailers promotions.
“If you’re a mall owner and you’re just sitting on your laurels of say, 10, 15 years ago, you’re probably in bad shape,” Craig said. “You’re not just in neutral; you’re in reverse.”
Craig, who clocked time at several of his properties from Thanksgiving Day afternoon through Sunday, tracked customers and pain points, and is already refining plans for Black Friday 2020.
Rain and temperatures that crept down to the mid-40s over the weekend weren’t exactly welcome at outdoor lifestyle centers, but that didn’t dampen spending.
Craig noted the company’s portfolio of 15 centers across eight states “did amazingly well” despite the weather challenges. Outerwear, not surprisingly, “blew it out of the water,” he said.
A brief Black Friday power outage just before 2 p.m. at South Coast Plaza temporarily shuttered some boutiques, while others stayed open. A Microsoft employee called out to visitors shuffling through the Costa Mesa center during the outage, “Hey, we’re still open, if you want to come in.”
Rosy Outlook
Business at the shopping center has been strong this year and that’s only expected to continue in the current quarter, South Coast Plaza Executive Director of Marketing Debra Gunn Downing said.
“We saw a substantial increase in foot traffic because of that. Some of our boutiques had lines out the door by noon [on Black Friday],” she said.
Promotions, which have always been a Black Friday hallmark, helped. However, the discounts continue to begin earlier and last for lengthier periods of time in some cases.
“Some retailers began their sales and promotions earlier in November, while others launched theirs just before Thanksgiving. So customers have been coming in prior to Thanksgiving to start their holiday shopping,” Gunn Downing said. “Having said that, Black Friday still brings in the crowds to South Coast Plaza for many reasons. The special promotions are certainly the biggest draw. Even with online shopping available, people still come to shop in person because there are things that brick-and-mortar retail still delivers: instant gratification, an opportunity to check out the merchandise and try on and, of course, the social experience.”
Selfies in front of the center’s Christmas trees, taking pictures with Santa Claus, riding the carousel and seeing sculptor and painter Lara Schnitger’s new art installation in South Coast Plaza’s Saks Fifth Avenue wing are all draws to the center, Gunn Downing said.
Brands and retailers, like some shopping centers, reported a strong performance from Black Friday through Cyber Monday.
Investors sent Irvine men’s and women’s retailer Tilly’s Inc.’s shares up last Thursday, after the company painted a rosy outlook for the remainder of the holiday season. President and CEO Ed Thomas said the company is “well positioned” for the rest of holiday.
Irvine uniform and tactical gear brand and retailer 5.11 Tactical Inc. Senior Vice President and General Manager of Omnichannel Retail Felipe Zardo said Black Friday and Cyber Monday brought on the company’s “most robust and successful holiday campaign to date” across its online store and fleet of 59 stores nationally. The company notched double-digit increases in sales via online and brick-and-mortar, according to Zardo.
Deals, Deals, Deals
Laguna Beach jewelry brand Gorjana, which has been on a tear of late opening its own physical stores—now up to 13 doors—held back from the early promotional frenzy, opting to wait until the day before Thanksgiving to launch discounts.
“We noticed a lot of brands started Black Friday promos as early as a full week before Thanksgiving because of the late Thanksgiving holiday calendar, so they were in a bit of panic mode. But we waited until late Wednesday to launch ours, which proved to be successful,” Gorjana & Griffin Inc. CEO and co-founder Jason Reidel said.
The company notched its largest Black Friday gains through its direct-to-consumer channels—which includes its online shop, in addition to its growing store fleet—with 300% year-over-year growth from a year ago. The weekend saw the company hit 110% above projections.
Richer Poorer, like Gorjana, launched promotions on the Wednesday prior to the holiday, while Senior E-commerce Marketing Manager Sam Wilson noted the challenges in breaking through the Black Friday “clutter.” Wilson, like others, lamented the “social conditioning of max discount holiday shopping, which prompts people to wait to try a product, or wait to reorder until the next holiday season.”
Still, San Juan Capistrano-based Richer Poorer notched year-over-year increases in revenue, average order value and customer retention, with Cyber Monday seeing the greatest gains, according to Wilson.
Boutique owner Dayna Mance, who operates her Prism Boutique concepts in Long Beach and The LAB in Costa Mesa, is optimistic about the rest of the month, noting it’s the procrastinators that help retailers really see the ramp up in business closer to Christmas. Otherwise, Black Friday was OK, although it was Cyber Monday that helped keep the retailer on track with sales that day double what they were on Black Friday.
“Black Friday, first off, it’s not even Black Friday anymore because it starts two to three weeks prior,” Mance said. “The sales have started so early and, with online, the marketplace has just changed so rapidly even from last year. You don’t really need to go out in the cold and wait in a line anymore.”
It’s a balancing act, however, for small businesses such as Mance who are more sensitive to inventory costs. If everything is discounted early for longer periods, she and others in her position run the risk of not having enough to sell through the month and up to Super Saturday—the last Saturday before Christmas when retailers see another bump in traffic and sales.
While the retailer, a former Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie store manager, plays the promotional game along with many others, she’s also a firm believer in physical retail wooing shoppers into stores with décor such as lights and garland. She also hosts gatherings at both her stores, bringing in multiple vendors, snacks and drinks to drive traffic.
“Now, everything is so discounted,” she said. “If I do not discount things on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I will not sell the units. You have to [discount] if you want to compete.”
