Defeated on Thanksgiving, some South Sound shoppers try again and triumph on Black Friday
Tiffany Russell found the Tacoma Best Buy parking lot full Thanksgiving Day with a line of shoppers that stretched to the Babies R Us store next door.
She arrived half an hour before the store opened Thursday with early Black Friday deals, but by the time she got inside, the television she wanted to buy had sold out.
The Steilacoom woman decided to try again Friday morning, in hopes the store would restock overnight.
This time, she waited in line with only a couple dozen shoppers.
And when the store opened, she got not one, but two of the 40-inch Sharp TVs she wanted.
“One for me, and one for my son,” she told The News Tribune. “Yesterday people were scrambling. Today was alright.”
The same strategy worked for Matt Jones of Lakewood.
He told The News Tribune the Lakewood Walmart was out of Tupperware and other things he wanted Thursday, but he found them at the Tacoma Walmart on Friday.
“It was pretty busy yesterday, but not as bad as it’s been in previous years,” he said of the crowds at the Lakewood store. “I think online shopping has made it so that there’s less foot traffic and less craziness. I haven’t actually seen a good fight in a couple years Black Friday shopping.”
The Tacoma store was not very busy Friday, he said, but seemed to be out of a lot of things. And the prices seemed to have increased slightly, he added.
Tristen Grabner and her family also said merchandise at Walmart and Target seemed pretty picked over Friday morning, but they had better luck browsing OshKosh and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
They set out at 4 a.m. from their University Place home to look for deals on baby toys and clothes, kitchen gadgets and other items.
Grabner said they weren’t interested in going for the early Black Friday deals that many major retailers offer on Thanksgiving Day. Instead, they spent time at home as a family.
Black Friday shopping should be done Friday, she said.
“We believe in keeping that where it should be,” Grabner said, while holding her 6-month-old son, Sam, in the line outside Best Buy.
“They might as well not even call it Black Friday anymore,” her mother-in-law Michelle Chapman added.
Further back in the Best Buy line, strangers Rick Morgan and Jeff Lee, both from Lakewood, shared an umbrella.
They also said they were too busy Thursday with Thanksgiving to hit the deals.
Morgan said he spent the day at a friend’s house, and by the time he got home wasn’t in the mood to shop for the speaker he wanted.
“When I got back it was like 11:30,” he said. “I’m like no, I’m trying to sleep.”
He and Lee, who was at Best Buy to get wireless ear buds, were surprised more people weren’t in line Friday.
“I figured it’d be longer, to be honest,” Morgan said.
This story was originally published November 23, 2018 at 2:24 PM.
