Nov 28, 2008 2:24 pm US/Pacific
No Sign Of Slump On Black Friday In Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ―
Friday's official start of the holiday shopping season has shown no signs of a slumping economy in the Bay Area.
Since early this morning, crowds of shoppers have lined up to be among the first to spend money at malls and shopping centers in all corners of the Bay Area despite consumer advocate predictions that retail confidence and spending would both trend down this holiday season.
A long line of people stood outside the Macy's in San Francisco's Union Square before the store opened.
"Have you been down here? You can barely get up the sidewalk," Macy's spokeswoman Janet Devor said describing the shopping scene at Union Square in San Francisco this morning.
Madison Marquette, a retail real estate management company that manages the Bay Street shopping village in Emeryville and the larger Bayfair Center in San Leandro, reported equally crowded turnouts at both destinations.
Though the official Friday morning opening time at Bayfair Center was 8 a.m., some big-box retailers like Target as well as Old Navy, Staples and Bed Bath & Beyond, opened at 5 a.m.
"It was bustling," Whitney Livingston, regional director of marketing for Madison Marquette, said about Bayfair. "I was there at 6:30 a.m. and the parking lot was full. The parking lot has 3,000 spaces."
Electronics stores are also very busy this morning, with shoppers rushing into some stores as soon the doors were opened.
In Union City, cars were lined up for about a half mile for the off-ramp at Interstate 880 as shoppers headed to a Best Buy.
Concerns over a receding national economy and months of dipping consumer confidence reports leading into the holiday shopping season had raised concerns among retailers that consumers might not be expected to show up in as strong of numbers as previous years.
In a nationwide survey outlining consumer spending patterns in a bad economy, the American Independent Business Alliance, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies and Oakland-based gift-exchange Web site elfster.com found that 65.1 percent of their survey's respondents had indicated that the economic crisis would negatively impact their holiday shopping.
"Concerns about the economy are making people spend less in general," said elfster Inc. CEO Peter Imburg. "There are two kinds of tidal-wave changes happening; the economic situation, and environmental concerns, green types of concerns like less excess."
So far in the Bay Area, the portion of elfster.com's survey reporting that 72.4 percent of respondents are still shopping in local shops, malls, and big-box retailers seems to be holding truest.
Since hard-number retail returns remain to be calculated, projections on this year's holiday spending can begin to be made by judging by the crowds.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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