How Was The Shopping?

By Justin Foss, Reporter

Tools

By Justin Foss

Story Created: Nov 28, 2008 at 10:10 PM CST

Story Updated: Nov 28, 2008 at 10:10 PM CST

CEDAR RAPIDS - This used to surprise us...we never expected people to stand in line overnight just to buy a Christmas present.

It's no longer a surprise.

"We've been very impressed with the crowd that came out this morning. Mother Nature obviously helped us out was well. But in terms of the numbers that turned out today, we've been very impressed with what we've seen," said Dave Lyng with Target.

Lots of people in the store, but not necessarily lots of money in the drawer.

This may be the busiest shopping day of the year, but the National Retailers Association says the Saturday before Christmas is day when shoppers as a whole spend the most money.

Stores say they will do 40 percent of their yearly sales in the next month.

Dillon Freilinger and his family did their best to support the economy.

"Ever since the flood, we lost a lot of our stuff, so we just kind of restocked on our home theater stuff and other things we wanted," said Freilinger.

The were plenty of deals to be had, but analysts don't expect the deals to get drastically better as December continues. That's because retailers are already reducing prices not just on the big ticket items, but on everything else too.

"And so there isn't as much play there a consumers might think in terms of what kind of discounting they can do without putting themselves in very serious financial position," said U of I Marketing Professor John Murray.

Black Friday originally got its name because this signaled the day retailers finally showed a profit for the year.

What will surprise retailers this year is if that profit comes close to years past.

Email Justin Foss at Justin.Foss@kcrg.com

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