Retailers bank on Black Friday to energize bargain-hungry holiday shoppers

NEW YORK (AP) — It's show time.

After weeks of pushing early deals, retailers in the United States and some other countries are promising bigger discounts on Black Friday, the sales event that still reigns as the unofficial kickoff of the holiday shopping season even if it's lost some luster.

Department stores, shopping malls and merchants — big and small — see the day after Thanksgiving as a way to energize shoppers and to get them into physical stores at a time when many gift-seekers do the bulk of their browsing and buying online.

Enough traditionalists must still be around, because Black Friday remains the biggest day of the year for retail foot traffic in the U.S., according to retail technology company Sensormatic Solutions.

“Black Friday is still an incredibly important day for retailers,” Grant Gustafson, head of retail consulting and analytics at Sensormatic, said. “It’s important for them to be able to get shoppers into their store to show them that experience of what it’s like to browse and touch and feel items. It also can be a bellwether for retailers on what to expect for the rest of the holiday season.”

In the U.S., analysts envision a solid holiday shopping season, though perhaps not as robust as last year’s, with many shoppers under financial pressure and cautious with their discretionary spending despite the easing of inflation.

Retailers will be even more under the gun to get shoppers in to buy early and in bulk since there are five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minnesota, hopes to surpass the 12,000 shoppers who arrived last year within the first hour of the giant shopping center's 7 a.m. opening. This year, the mall is giving the first 200 people in line at the center's north entrance a $25 gift card.

“People come to get the deals, but more importantly, they come for the excitement, the energy, the traditions surrounding Black Friday,” Jill Renslow, Mall of America's chief business development and marketing officer, said.

Target is offering an exclusive book devoted to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour and a bonus edition of her “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” album that only will be available in stores on Black Friday before customers can buy them online starting Saturday.

Best Buy has introduced an extended-release version of the doorbuster, the limited-time daily discounts that for years were all the rage — and sometimes the spark for actual brawls. The nation’s largest consumer electronics chain has released doorbuster deals every Friday since Nov. 8 and plans to continue the weekly promotion through Dec. 20.

“(Stores) are very hungry for Black Friday to do well,” Marshal Cohen, chief retail advisor at market research firm Circana, said. “They recognize that they’re not going to clobber and win big growth in online because the pie has gotten so competitive. They have to find a way to win in the stores.”

Impulse purchases and self-gifting are a potential area for big sales growth, and business isn't going to increase without them, Cohen said. Shoppers are three times more likely to buy on impulse at a physical store than online, according to Circana research.

The National Retail Federation predicted that shoppers would increase their spending in November and December by between 2.5% and 3.5% over the same period a year ago. During the 2023 holiday shopping season, spending increased 3.9% over 2022.

So far this holiday season, online sales have beaten expectations, according to Adobe Digital Insights, a division of software company Adobe. U.S. consumers spent  $77.4 billion online from Nov. 1 to Nov. 24, 9.6%  more than during the same period last year. Adobe predicted an 8.4% increase for the full season.

Despite the early sales, better bargains are coming with Black Friday, according to Adobe. Analysts consider the five-day Black Friday weekend, which includes Cyber Monday, a key barometer of shoppers’ willingness to spend for the rest of the season.

Vivek Pandya, the lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said shoppers are paying more attention to discounts than last year, and their focus on bargain-hunting will drive what sells and when.

For example, Thanksgiving Day is the best time to shop online to get the deepest discount on sporting goods, toys, furniture and appliances, according to Adobe's analysis. But Black Friday is the best time to buy TVs online. People shopping for televisions earlier in the season found discounts that averaged 10.8%, while waiting until this Friday is expected to yield 24% discounts, Adobe Digital Insights said.

Cyber Monday, however, is expected to be the best time to buy clothing and gadgets like phones and computers online. Electronics discounts peaked at 10.9% off the suggested manufacturer's price between Nov. 1 and Nov. 24 but are expected to hit 30% off on Cyber Monday, Adobe said.

Across the board, Black Friday weekend discounts should peak at 30% on Cyber Monday and then go down to around 15%, according to Adobe’s research.

People walk by sale signs on the shopping street in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A shopper passes a store advertising a Black Friday Sale on Regent Street in London, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

People window shop in Bryant Park's Winter Village, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A shopper looks at handbags at Macy's department store on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Anne D'Innocenzio)

FILE - Shoppers and others walk down a crowded sidewalk on Black Friday in the Soho neighborhood of New York, Nov. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Peter K. Afriyie, File)

Items on sale for $5 are displayed at a Five Below store on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Anne D'Innocenzio)

Items on sale for Black Friday are displayed at Macy's department store on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Anne D'Innocenzio)

Shoppers pass a Christmas tree at the Bergdorf Goodman store on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Anne D'Innocenzio)

A sign promoting Black Friday deals sits on table with a display of mirrorless cameras in a Best Buy store Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in south Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

BOSTON (AP) — A handful of Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to persuade their colleagues to support a proposal that would make the state the first to adopt a ban meant to eliminate the use of tobacco products over time.

Other locations have weighed similar “generational tobacco bans,” which phase out the use of tobacco products based not just on a person's age but on birth year.

Under a Massachusetts law signed in 2018, the age to buy any tobacco product — including cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes — was raised to 21. Massachusetts also has banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products in an effort to reduce youth interest in nicotine.

The new proposal, which lawmakers plan to file next year, would expand the effort to curb smoking by gradually ending all sales of nicotine and tobacco products. If the bill is approved, young people not old enough to legally purchase nicotine and tobacco would never be lawfully able to purchase them in Massachusetts, thereby creating no more new users.

It would not apply to marijuana, and the cutoff date would be adjusted when passed to ensure everyone age 21 and above at that time would not be affected.

Brookline, a town of about 63,000 neighboring Boston, was the first municipality in the country to adopt such a ban in 2020. Instead of raising the age for purchasing cigarettes, the bylaw blocks the sale of tobacco to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2000. The rule went into effect in 2021.

That would mean at some point in the future no one would be allowed to buy any tobacco products in the town. The measure was challenged, but the state's highest court weighed in earlier this year, upholding the ban.

Other Massachusetts cities and towns already have approved similar tobacco bans, including Malden, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield, and Winchester.

Democratic state Sen. Jason Lewis, one of the backers of the statewide proposal, said the bill would "save countless lives and create a healthier world for the next generation.”

“We all know the devastating health effects of nicotine and tobacco products, especially on our youth," he said.

Nicotine and tobacco products are addictive and can increase the risk of lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and other illnesses.

Nearly 9 out of 10 adults who smoke cigarettes daily first tried smoking by age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also found that in 2024 about 2 in 5 students who had ever used a tobacco product currently used them.

Peter Brennan, executive director of the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, said the proposal would undercut small mom and pop shops that rely on cigarettes for a significant portion of their sales.

It also would put stores located near neighboring states that allow the sale of cigarettes to all adults at a competitive disadvantage.

“It’s a terrible idea,” he said. “You’re really just taking away adults’ right to purchase a legal, age-restricted product.”

Taking certain rights away from some adults and not others is likely unconstitutional, he said, adding that other prohibition efforts haven’t worked, like past bans on alcohol, marijuana and gambling.

It's unclear how much support the proposal has in the Legislature.

Massachusetts has taken other steps in recent decades to curb smoking, including raising taxes on cigarettes. Those taxes would presumably be reduced and ultimately eliminated by an incremental statewide smoking ban.

Any reduction in cigarette tax revenue would be more than offset by reduced healthcare costs and other savings, Lewis said.

In 2022, 10.4% of adults in Massachusetts reported smoking cigarettes, according to the state Department of Public Health.

Some California lawmakers have pushed to ban all tobacco sales, filing legislation last year to make it illegal to sell cigarettes and other products to anyone born after Jan. 1, 2007.

In 2022, New Zealand became the first nation to pass a law intended to impose a lifetime ban on young people buying cigarettes by mandating that tobacco can’t ever be sold to anybody born on or after Jan. 1, 2009. The law was later axed.

In the U.K., Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proposed raising the legal age that people in England can buy cigarettes by one year, every year until it is eventually illegal for the whole population. The proposal failed to win approval earlier this year.

FILE - Cigarette butts sit in an ashtray on March 28, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)