Shoppers converge on Tri-Cities for Black Friday

Retailers big and small have high hopes for this holiday season.

Columbia Center mall in Kennewick opened at 6 a.m. on Black Friday. Mall General Manager Barbara Johnson said that, so far, it looks like it will be an improved shopping season over 2014.

“Obviously, the Tri-Cities economy is very strong,” she said. “I think that will lend itself to the holiday season.”

Daniel Campos left Moses Lake at 5:45 a.m. Friday and reached the mall by 7:30. He found some good deals, including stores with many items marked 50 percent off, he said.

This was Campos’ second consecutive year making it to the mall early on Black Friday.

“There weren’t as many people as there were last year in the early hours,” he said. “This year, they started to come later, I noticed.”

Around the country, consumers flocked to websites and stores to snap up big-screen TVs, gaming consoles, movies and toys.

Matthew Shay, president of the National Retail Federation, said Friday that there were reports of long lines outside of stores on Thanksgiving night and of record-breaking online sales.

Nearly 60 percent of shoppers — or 136 million people — were expected to shop between Thanksgiving Day and Nov. 29, according to the federation. Those numbers are about in line with last year.

Tri-City shoppers who don’t like waking up early had another option, since Columbia Center mall also opened at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving, two hours earlier than last year. Stores offered different deals to bring shoppers back again Friday, Johnson said.

Not all Tri-City businesses opened early. Octopus’ Garden in Richland opened at 9:30 a.m., as usual. But its customers were just as excited to be there.

“I’ve always had good luck here,” said Scott Beeler of Richland. “People are nice. I like it because I don’t live too far away and I really like to stay away from the traffic.”

“And where else can you get a camouflage tie-dye shirt?” he added.

The store sells T-shirts, offbeat greeting cards, retro toys and novelty items like an inflatable cow skull and an emergency underpants dispenser. Gus Sako, who has owned the store since 1976, said it does about three times a typical month’s sales leading up to Christmas.

Locally owned stores don’t usually offer the “door buster” sales like big box retailers, but Sako is pleased to see the national Small Business Saturday take off, he said. The sixth such day is planned for Nov. 28.

The Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce is supporting Small Business Saturday this year as a “Neighborhood Champion,” according to a news release. The champions rally local businesses and remind people about Small Business Saturday on social media.

“It’s mostly about raising awareness,” said Sako, who also owns Luna Fish, a women’s boutique a couple of doors down. “Even if people don’t come out on a particular day, it gets people thinking about the place of small businesses in the community. More than ever, we’re competing against gargantuan corporations and giant internet companies that don’t actually have to show a profit.”

Sako, who is chairman of the Richland Economic Development Committee, hopes people will patronize small businesses all over the Tri-Cities.

“Check out the old downtowns in all three communities,” he said. “Once you start poking around the older neighborhoods, you find really interesting things.”

In Pasco, business was very good at Griggs Department Store, co-owner Charlie Grigg said. But it is typically better there the Saturday after Thanksgiving than it is on Black Friday.

The store has a loyal customer base, he said.

“There are a lot of people who have shopped here for a lot of years and love to support us as a local business,” he said. “When they come here, they know it’s not a Walmart, they know it’s not a Fred Meyer. They know it’s a local family here in the Tri-Cities. Our money stays here in the Tri-Cities.”

While many commentators have been proclaiming the death of brick-and-mortar stores, Charlie O’Shea, an analyst with Moody’s, said Black Friday highlights how important the in-store shopping experience still is for many shoppers.

“There’s still a lot of shoppers that don’t shop online,” he said. “And a lot of people like to go to the stores — the thrill of the chase, the thrill of the hunt.”

Meanwhile, back at the mall, Campos was ready for a break. Luckily, he was able to take one at the Oriental Massage kiosk.

“I definitely needed that,” he said. “We put in extra hours at work during the week so we could take a couple days off.”

This story was originally published November 27, 2015 at 10:04 PM with the headline "Shoppers converge on Tri-Cities for Black Friday."