Auroraadvocate.com - Holiday shoppers find deals

by Holly Schoenstein

Reporter

"Black Friday" shoppers got an early start this year at Aurora Farms Premium Outlets, when some stores opened at 10 Thanksgiving night.

Lisa Kusner, assistant general/marketing manager, said the first shoppers -- a group of three -- arrived at 5:30 p.m., and by 10 several hundred people were waiting in line.

Also busy was the Streetsboro Kmart, which opened at 6 a.m. on Nov. 27.

Kmart Manager Jeff Gundling said the store exceeded last year's Black Friday sales. "This is way busier than last year," he said. "There were probably 300 to 400 people in line."

Gundling said he attributes the increase to a new paved parking lot and exterior upgrades earlier this year.

Popular items at Kmart have included electronics, Gundling said.

Around 9:30 a.m. Nov. 27, Nick Kitko and two friends, all of Solon, were finding deals at the Nike store at Aurora Farms, including a T-shirt representing his favorite baseball player -- Travis Hafner of the Cleveland Indians -- for less than $2.

"My buddies and I are pretty much obsessed with Nike apparel. We like to pretend we're athletes," said the 20-year-old Kitko. "We'll go home and come back this afternoon because there's a sale on tennis shoes."

Twinsburg resident Nina Moore got a much earlier start on her holiday shopping with her two daughters.

"We were here last night [Nov. 26] at midnight, and then we went home, went to sleep and came back at 7:30 a.m.," she said.

"We wanted to be out and enjoy shopping. We didn't make it to the Nike store, so we wanted to come back."

Moore and her younger daughter waited in line at Rue 21 for 1 1/2 hours and then for another hour at the complex's food court.

"Overall, it was a fun experience; we'll be back again next year," she said.

This is the third year Aurora Farms has opened Thanksgiving night, Kusner said.

"Traffic backs up for miles; we shuttle people from the schools," she said, adding the courtesy transportation lasted until 8 a.m. Nov. 27.

But Kusner said she hadn't noticed a difference in the number of shoppers this year compared to years past.

"We're very optimistic we'll see an increase," she said. "Shoppers are looking for great deals now, and that's what we have."

Coach, Gap, Banana Republic and Nike were among the busiest stores at the outlets. Coach continued to have a steady line until 6:30 a.m. Nov. 27, according to Kusner.

While the stream of shoppers remained strong at the outlets, a group of hard-core bargain hunters were checking out deals at Streetsboro's Wal-Mart around 9 a.m. Nov. 27. They had been shopping since midnight.

"We never went to bed," Cleveland resident Sharon Armstrong said.

The group visited Aurora Farms and Staples in Streetsboro and were planning to head to Steelyard Commons in Cleveland's Flats.

"This is the first year we did this," Shawn Armstrong said.

At Wal-Mart, they were buying toys for a fundraiser called "Unlock a Child's Smile."

Nearby at Target in Streetsboro, a line of customers wrapped around the building as they waited for doors to open at 5 a.m. Nov. 27, according to the store's team leader, Purvies Taylor.

The store gave the first 500 shoppers reusable shopping bags, for which they'll get 5 cents off their orders each time a bag is used.

Taylor said the store experienced as much business over the weekend as it did the same weekend last year.

"We were getting a lot of information through magazines and other forms of media that predicted this retail season, this particular weekend, was going to be flat," Taylor said. "But we're experiencing an increase in traffic."

Electronics, small appliances and clothing were among the most popular items, he said.

Editor's Note: The Gateway News Editor Bob Gaetjens contributed to this story.

E-mail:

hschoenstein@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3152