The Denver Post
All over Colorado, tousled-hair shoppers – many clutching newspaper circulars – early Friday morning crushed into mass discounters in search of “doorbuster” specials on mostly consumer electronics and computer gear.
Although most stores weren’t filled, some were. And a few people lined up as early as 1:30 a.m. to get the best deals before their chosen items sold out.
The crush of shoppers created odd scenes: Rush-hour traffic was headed not to the office centers of downtown Denver and the Denver Tech Center, but to places like the Park Meadows Mall and large “big box” stores on South Quebec Street in Highlands Ranch.
Also curious were the masses of people assembled at 5 a.m. in certain places, the Circuit City in Highlands Ranch for example, next to desolate stores like a completely empty (and as-yet-unopened) Babies R Us.
Locally, Colorado’s retail sector is expected to enjoy sales that are 5 percent to 6 percent higher in 2005 than in 2004. That’s the same forecast predicted nationally.
However, relatively high energy prices could dampen buyers’ enthusiasm, experts say.
At the Circuit City in Highlands Ranch, hundreds of people waited for the store to open in a darkened parking lot lit only by the headlights of arriving cars and by a crescent moon shining in the southeast sky.
Here’s what we encountered:
7 a.m., Lakewood
The parking lot at the Denver West SuperTarget, 14500 W. Colfax Ave., is one-third filled. “The store is pretty mellow,” reports Aldo Svaldi, Post staff writer. “A third of the checkout lanes are open, and most of the people are back in the toy section.”
A hot seller is the 54-inch Omega Hockey Table priced at $39.88, marked down from $59.88.
“It’s a pretty big item,” Svaldi says. “One of them fills up your cart.”
6:55 a.m.
The sun rises along Colorado’s Front Range.
6:50 a.m., Denver
Ninety-three people waited at 6 a.m. outside the Foley’s store at Cherry Creek Shopping Center before the store opened, reports Lisa Herzlich, mall marketing manager. “The first four families arrived at 4:46. There were people at Foley’s, Foley’s Home Furniture and Bed Bath & Beyond, which all opened at 6 a.m.
Several stores opened at 6:30 a.m., Herzlich reported. They were Eddie Bauer, Children’s Place, Verizon Wireless, Pac-Sun, American Eagle, Urban Outfitters and, “of course,” Cinnabon.
Doors of the mall were open at 5 a.m. The first store to open was Peaberry Coffee, at 5:45 a.m.
6:15 a.m., Avon
Melvin and Raquel Valdez of Gypsum tell staff writer Margaret Jackson that they arrived at Wal-Mart Supercenter store at 5:10 a.m.
“They do this every Black Friday. They come and do this with their three kids. This was like an ordeal to get three kids – Anthony, 7, Alexis 5 and Aiden, 2 – and drive somewhere by 5:10 a.m.
“They were there mainly for the SpongeBob TV and DVD player.”
5:42 a.m., Denver
The Kmart at 363 S. Broadway is ringed with brightly colored green-and-red signs advertising a 50 percent off sale. The parking lot, however, is only about 10 percent filled.
5:41 a.m., Denver
The Sam’s Club at 505 S. Broadway is open despite posted hours of 7 a.m. “for business members.” The parking lot is only 10 percent filled.
5:28 a.m., Lone Tree
The parking lot outside J.C. Penney, 8417 S. Park Meadows Center Drive, is filled with cars. A number of cars also are parked outside the Foley’s department store, 8401 S. Park Meadows Center, on the mall’s south side.
5:25 a.m., Lone Tree
The well-lighted parking lot of the Best Buy store, 8682 Park Meadows Center Drive, is 90 percent filled.
At the front door, WB-2 has a live camera crew, and burritos, bagels and coffee are being sold at two booths.
5:18 a.m., Highlands Ranch
The parking lot at the Wal-Mart at 7900 West Quincy Ave. is 85 percent full. Four customers are seen carting out large 20-inch “Pure Flat TV DVD Combos.”
One customer carts out two of the machines.
5 a.m., Avon
“The parking lot at the Wal-Mart Supercenter (171 Yoder Ave.) was not that full,” reports staff writer Jackson. “And when I got inside, there seemed to be more employees than there were people, until you got to the electronics section. It was packed.”
Two shoppers at the store talked about “how laptops flew off the shelf. They were gone in two minutes,” she reports.
“They had a sale on, and I’m a guilty purchaser of, a 20-inch flat-screen TV and DVD combo,” Jackson reports. One woman said Wal-Mart was advertising them for $128, but they were being sold for a less-than-advertised price of $98.
According to Jackson, shoppers also were buying:
Desktop computers
Radio-controlled Jeep Wranglers
Roasting ovens.
4:58 a.m., Highlands Ranch
Between 500 and 1,000 people are lined up around the Circuit City Store at 8575 S. Quebec St.
When the doors were thrown open, a few shoppers ran inside, but most proceeded in an orderly fashion. People filed through magnetometers two at a time for a full seven minutes.
Anupam Das, 33, a Hewlett Packard employee, is at the front of the line trying to buy a $199 laptop (with a year’s subscription to Amerca Online.) He hopes to “slice off” the AOL portion.
Bane Petrovich, the store’s director, says he has 70 to 80 employees staffing the store. As for this year’s “Black Friday” sale, he says, “I think it’s much more competitive. There’s better pricing on teelvisions and computer equipment. It’s going to be a great Thanksgiving.” As for the laptops, “I think we’re going to be out of them.” The line outside the store at 1:30 a.m., when Petrovich arrived, numbered about 25 people.
Shihaun Qu, 18, a student at the Colorado School of Mines, has purchased a 512-megabyte memory card for $10. “They usually cost $60,” he says. The card is for himself. He leaves the store at 5:09 a.m.
Karen Hirsch, 42, of Lone Tree, likewise has made her purchases and is checking out at 5:12 a.m. The tousled-hair Hirsch, with her daughter, Emma Giedt, had come to Circuit City for a laptop. But vouchers were made available for only 21 people, and she arrived only at 4:30 a.m. However, she’s purchased an HP Photosmart 2610 “all-in-one” printer costing $99.99. “I saved $160,” she says. The printer is a gift for herself: “People are always wanting to fax me things, and this has a fax machine.”
4:50 a.m., Littleton
A line of red shopping carts block the entrance to the Target store at 1950 E. County Line Road. The store doesn’t open until 6 a.m., and no one has yet arrived.