Where has the Madness of Black Friday Gone?

Black Friday shopping just isn’t as big of a deal in the valley as it was in past years.

Looking around West Acres Mall this morning, you might not even realize it was Black Friday if it weren’t for all of the signs.

“You think it’s going to be really, really busy, but I got here and it’s like not at all,” said shopper Ashley. “Like, even earlier in the morning it wasn’t really busy.”

Sure, the mall is more crowded than average, but it’s nothing like the classic videos with shoppers piling on top of each other to get that last hand bag.

“When we went to Walmart, it was like, empty compared to other years,” said Ashley.

What happened to the madness of years past?

“Well I think traditionally the Black Friday idea was just really the beginning of the Christmas holiday shopping and a lot of consumers looked at it that way and obviously that’s changed quite a bit,” said NDSU Marketing Professor Gerry Macintosh.

Macintosh says it’s changed because the typical Black Friday sales are diluted by things like Cyber Monday, pre–Black Friday sales and Small Business Saturday.

He says all these new sales have come about because of how competitive retailers have to be to stay ahead of the game.

“You know, something we find every year, we ask companies if they’ve met expectations or not and retailing is a category where you’re going to find a bigger percentage of people not meeting their expectations,” said Macintosh.

Although these extra sales have cut down the early morning Black Friday turnout, there are still a hefty amount of people who come out.

Maybe one of the biggest reasons why people keep setting their alarms early each year for Black Friday is because…it’s simply a tradition.

“I think it’s a lot of fun and we’ve just been doing it for four years so we just want to keep it going,” confessed Ashley.

“Spend some time with my sisters and we have some bonding time and then also the Starbucks when you come up to Fargo,” said shopper Katie Winter.

Whatever the reason, people aren’t likely to give up their post–Thanksgiving pastime any time soon.

Despite early numbers, mall officials say they expect to see 75,000 shoppers this weekend.