IT REGISTERS

MAT-SU — The economy may not be the best these days, but that didn’t stop blurry-eyed shoppers from, at least for one day, keeping dairy farmers hours to snap up deals Friday morning.

The annual post-Thanksgiving shopping day, known as Black Friday because sales often increase a retailer’s profitability — putting them in the black financially — brought out the masses to many Valley stores.

For those willing to stand in line in the pre-dawn hours, deals were aplenty. For retailers, the day was a chance to catch up on what might have been sagging sales in recent months.

At Target, which opened just over one month ago, store manager Scott Hayes said sales exceeded expectations.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Hayes said. “It’s the first year.”

Electronics and toys seem to be the big sellers this holiday season, and Hayes cited items like LCD televisions and digital cameras that were highly discounted as driving sales.

Target opened at 6 a.m. Friday, which was later than some other big box retailers in the Valley. Regardless, Hayes said the line of early shoppers stretched across the front of the store before he opened the doors.

Target shopper Hope Fuller said the Thanksgiving weekend has been busy. She said she did some shopping on the military base Friday, and Saturday she was hitting Target in Wasilla.

“There are some good deals,” Fuller said. “Now if I just have enough energy to finish.”

Fuller was trying to knock out all her holiday shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Down the street at Wal-Mart, manager-on-duty Allison, who declined to give her last name, said the store had been “pretty busy.”

She said nothing crazy had happened as of nearly noon, and the number of shoppers seemed pretty typical for Black Friday.

“As far as I know, we’re going really good on sales,” she said.

There were no reports of stampedes or unruly behavior coming out of Valley stores Friday, unlike news from Long Island, N.Y., where a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death in a Black Friday crush of unruly customers. The Associated Press reported a throng of “out of control” shoppers broke the doors down on a suburban Wal-Mart store and knocked over the 34-year old worker, trampling him.

The man, who was not identified, was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Witnesses at the scene described the shoppers as “savages” as they flew through the store looking for deep discounts.

There wasn’t any Friday morning violence at Fred Meyer in Wasilla, store manager Bill Birky said. There was, however, a lengthy line of customers waiting outside for the store’s 5 a.m. opening.

“The crowds are pretty substantial,” Birky said.

With all the talk of economic downturns and speculation of consumer penny pinching as much as possible, Birky said the turnout at his store Friday morning exceeded his expectations.

“I was pleasantly surprised, despite all the negative media on sales this year,” he said.

Recent news of bailouts on Wall Street and of an economic downturn, which some experts have called a recession, caused local managers to worry about whether customers would stay away Friday.

By press time it was too early for local retailers to tell how well they did with Black Friday sales. Those sales, many experts say, don’t necessarily determine how the rest of the holiday shopping season will go.

Recession or no, local retailers have been busy this first weekend after Thanksgiving.

Target sales associate Jennifer Byars was kept busy restocking clothes at the Wasilla Target store Saturday.

“We stock every day” she said, “but there is a lot more today.”

Robert DeBerry contributed to this report. Contact Michael Rovito at michael.rovito@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.