Shoppers seek deals, buy less on Black Friday

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By Alexandria Sage and Aarthi Sivaraman

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shoppers headed to stores on Friday lured by promises of money-saving deals, but the annual kick-off to holiday sales appeared weaker this year and worries of a deep recession kept purchases down.

To generate excitement during what some experts predict may be the bleakest holiday shopping season in nearly two decades, retailers from Wal-Mart Stores Inc to Macy's Inc, Kohl's Corp and Best Buy Co Inc opened their doors early on "Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving that marks the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, to offer steep discounts.

In New York's Valley Stream, a man working at a Wal-Mart died as a throng of shoppers broke down the doors trying to enter the store at 5 a.m. EST, police said. Four others were hurt in what the company called a "tragic" incident.

This holiday weekend will test the strength of consumer sentiment, a main driver of the U.S. economy, as the country faces its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Marjorie Daube, 59, of Manhattan scaled back her shopping and was only buying sale items, aware that her husband's bonus at a financial firm would decline this year. "Shopping was never fun at all, and it's less fun now," Daube said.

Natalie Diaz, 32, plans to spend about half of the $2,000 she shelled out last year for Christmas gifts, but said she would not cut down on presents for her twins.

"Santa does not have a recession," she said, while shopping at a J.C. Penney Co Inc store in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Early store traffic was lighter this year, but it had picked up by midday, said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at NPD Group. "The traffic is up compared to last year, but the bag count is down," he said. "There may be more casual shoppers, but they're not buying as much as last year."

Britt Beemer of America's Research Group said he saw shoppers carrying 25 to 40 percent fewer bags this year.

FEWER SALES AT HALF-PRICE

Most major stores offer big discounts on Black Friday, hoping to ring in billions of dollars by year's end, or up to 40 percent of annual sales.

The Standard & Poor's Retail Index slipped 1.6 percent on Friday. Major retail declines were led by a 10 percent drop at Talbots Inc and a nearly 7 percent drop for Chico's FAS Inc.

The retail index is down 35 percent so far this year, versus a nearly 40 percent drop for the S&P 500 index.

At one Best Buy in New Jersey, it took up to 1-1/2 hours for a crowd of 700 to 1,000 people to enter the store at 5 a.m., a manager said.

Parking lots at Taubman Centers Inc malls in Michigan, Virginia, Illinois and Connecticut were about 90 percent full by midmorning, a spokeswoman said.

Still, holiday traffic is not an accurate indicator of sales, since some shoppers may balk at buying once they arrive, or buy sparingly.

And with deep price cuts of up to 75 percent, stores may also need to sell twice the merchandise to preserve profits, said NPD's Cohen.

"If you don't get a good Black Friday start, you've got an awful lot of ground to make up," Cohen said.

One Macy's employee in San Francisco, Michael Vaughan, said he booked $3,000 in sales in the first three hours that the store was open -- but associates told him the norm for that period for Black Friday was four times that amount.

"Designer (clothing) is already 65 percent off," Vaughan said. "People still aren't buying."

WAL-MART PROSPERS

Many stores started offering steep discounts on everything from clothes to electronics weeks in advance of Thanksgiving.

Discounters like Wal-Mart have prospered in recent months as more consumers seek out their low prices.

But mid-tier retailers like department store operator Macy's and specialty chains such as AnnTaylor Stores Corp are battling to retain customers and eke out profits.

Macy's Chief Executive Terry Lundgren said the company has worked closely with its vendors to craft discounts without cutting too deeply into its own margins.

"One of the great advantages of being the largest customer to practically everyone you do business with is sharing in margin with our vendors and suppliers," Lundgren told Reuters in an interview.

Sales of clothing and big-ticket luxury items have been hit particularly hard as consumers cut back on everything but the most basic items. But electronics sellers and toy stores hope their goods will remain on the must-have lists of gift givers.

Online retailer Amazon.com Inc said Apple Inc's iPod personal music and video player was the No. 1-selling item on its website in the first 11 hours Friday.

The flurry of recent deals has convinced some shoppers they can get even better bargains by holding out longer.

"I think everyone is waiting for deeper discounts," said Cheri Tenfel, shopping at a Racine, Wisconsin, Best Buy. "I certainly am."

Retail sales at U.S. stores open at least a year could fall 2.4 percent in November, or 7.1 percent excluding Wal-Mart, compared with 4 percent growth last year, based on analyst forecasts compiled by Thomson Reuters.

(See http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/holidayshopping for Reuters holiday coverage and http://blogs.reuters.com/shop-talk/ for Shop Talk -- Reuters' retail and consumer blog)

(Additional reporting by Sarah Coffey and Ellen Wulfhorst In New York and Karen Jacobs in Wisconsin, writing by Michele Gershberg and Alexandria Sage; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Jeffrey Benkoe)

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