Black Friday got started early this year at Linden’s Aviation plaza. After dinner on Thanksgiving Day, local shoppers lined up to catch the best deals at stores in the plaza like Target, Old Navy and Home Depot. Surprisingly, Old Navy drew the biggest crowd with its’ 50% off store wide sale.
Even though the plaza was full of people scavenging for sales, the mood amongst them wasn’t nearly as hostile or dangerous as years past. There was no running for store doors, excessively long lines, people camped out or racing for parking spaces unlike Black Friday sales past. Beginning the sales early seems to have not only given more people the opportunity to shop, but also seems to have put the shoppers in a significantly better mood.
Most of the employees working, however, seemed none too pleased to have been taken away from their families. Target, which stayed open through the night, remained constantly busy. One Target employee wasn’t happy to be there earlier than usual but noticed some unexpected perks, “Customers this year have been delightful. It’s like they know we’d rather be home with our families and are just happy to be getting their sales so they’re much more subdued.” This is a great improvement, especially considering that past years have seen excessive pushing, theft and fighting amongst customers.
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Other stores in the plaza received no such insurgence of customers for the shopping holiday. Shoprite, which is usually the busiest by far, had only a couple of dozen cars in the parking lot. But overall, for the rest of Aviation Plaza it was an extremely successful and mutually enjoyable sale.
