Winnipeg shoppers hope for Black Friday deals

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This article was published 28/11/2014 (4201 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Getting up early and spending money on Black Friday is the new black.

That was the case for more than a few Winnipeggers this morning as shopping malls and retail giants cracked open their doors well before the sun came up to capitalize on the American retail hype that has crept into Canada in recent years.

The lineup outside Polo Park Shopping Centre minutes before the doors opened at 6 a.m. counted about 150 deep, with many after one specific thing: a basketball shoe.

Nike scheduled the re-release of the Air Jordan 6 for Black Friday, and nearly everyone in line at Polo Park couldn’t wait to get their hands — or feet — on them.

“I’ve been here since 2 a.m. Thursday, so I’ve been here waiting for awhile,” said Braeden Marshall, 19, standing at the front of the line. “I put these plastic chairs here to hold my place, so that when I had to leave it would be cool. I’ve been walking around the mall during that time and watching movies.

“Thankfully, it’s not too cold this morning.”

Athletic footwear stores like Foot Locker, Champs and Sport Chek weren’t the only stores open right at 6 a.m. this morning. Clothing giant H&M also had a few people lined up in front of its doors, as they were offering items starting for as little as $5.

“I actually was watching a movie and I saw they were having this sale, so I decided to stay up and come down,” Marlon Maramara, 18, said. “I was up already, so I might as well save a few bucks.”

Polo Park general manager Deborah Green figures the mall will see thousands of people take part in the Black Friday experience today.

“We have a bet on in our office and my guess is 93,000 people,” Green said this morning. “There are guesses anywhere from 78,000 to 93,000, so it will be a busy day no matter what. We have traffic counters on all the doors, so we should have a pretty accurate number.”

Green said the mall saw just under 73,000 people for Black Friday last year, with the busiest time coming between 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.

Polo Park opened its doors at 6 a.m. this morning (though only a handful of stores were actually ready for business), while St. Vital Shopping Centre was scheduled to open at 7 o’clock and Kildonan Place an hour after that.

Larger chain stores, including popular electronics outlets Best Buy and Future Shop, greeted would-be customers at 6 o’clock. Best Buy on St. James Avenue had a lineup of people approximately 100 deep at 5:30 a.m.

Black Friday, the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, has staked a claim to be the second-busiest retail day in Canada, behind only Boxing Day in terms of sales and lineups at the cash registers.

While images of people pouring into stores and climbing over one another to save a few bucks on a sweater or Blu-Ray player make up the mosaic of Black Friday, consumers should be aware of a tradition on the other end of the retail spectrum.

Today is also Buy Nothing Day, an international occasion informally recognized to serve as a balance to the retail madness by encouraging people to spend no money on retail goods and services.

Promoted by Adbusters magazine, the day is more a symbolic gesture than anything else, where participants engage by choosing not to participate in the Black Friday consumer circus.