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NEW YORK - Revenue and sales metrics are clearly central to any Black Friday analysis. But given the emotional component of the Black Friday shopping experience, no retail report on the Thanksgiving weekend would be complete without a first-hand account of the selling scene. Here are four:
Steve Smith, editor in chief, TWICE: For about a decade or more I have been visiting the same three stores on Black Friday at around the same time - 9 a.m. to noon - RC. Richard & Son, Best Buy and Costco, all in Long Island City in Queens, N. Y.
Traffic was greater at the P.C. Richard location than in the past couple of years. Store manager John Bogdanos said the store again opened at 4 a.m. and that there was steady business throughout the morning, particularly in big screen TVs. "Lots of TVs moving since we opened," he said, driven by sale items like a 51 -inch Samsung plasma for $478.91.
Traffic was also greater and departments looked busier than last year at the Best Buy location, particularly within the video game and digital imaging sections. District services manager Jonathan Hommel said, "We opened at midnight and it was very busy. We sold tons of TVs ... laptops were very popular too. We also sold plenty of gift cards for iPads and iPods."
At Costco store traffic was less than what I remember in previous years, but as store manager Jon Jovel said, traffic in the CE department was steady and, like at Best Buy and RC. Richard, big screen TVs and laptops were popular. With all the talk about online sales and the fading star of TVs and laptops, it was interesting to see that those categories were the most popular in the stores I visited.
At all three stores bigger-screen TVs - from 55 to more than 60 inches - were aggressively priced, especially models by Sharp and Samsung.
Alan Wolf, senior editor,...