Black Friday is known to be the day for millions of people to get Christmas shopping done. It’s a tradition for many families to head to the nearest mall or favored store and shop the best deals.
With Thanksgiving now over and Black Friday beginning, shopping will be drastically different for customers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many stores are having to adjust to new hours as well as enforce all new procedures for shoppers.
As cases in COVID-19 continue to rapidly rise, stores including Target and Adidas are preparing for what is to come for shoppers on Black Friday. Most stores will remain closed on Thanksgiving this year, giving many retail workers the ability to spend the holiday with family.
According to blackfriday.com, Thanksgiving weekend brought out 189.6 million U.S. shoppers last year during the Black Friday weekend. This year there is hope of smaller crowds coming out to shop to reduce the possibility of another major spike in COVID-19 cases. Due to another rise in cases, certain stores such as Target have started deals early.
Beginning the Monday before Thanksgiving, stores like Target will begin putting out Black Friday deals online and throughout the week, with the hope to reduce the large crowds on Black Friday.
Each day will bring out a new sale and shoppers can find the deals and sales on the Target app and website. Target will remain closed on Thanksgiving according to one of the store managers at the Target in Camarillo, Marissa Gama.
“It will be good for everyone to be closed on Thanksgiving so we can be with family for once,” Gama shared.
Hours for Target will now be 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Black Friday.
Gama explained that there will be line monitoring at the Camarillo Target to be sure shoppers follow the guidelines to enter the store.
For retail stores at the Camarillo Outlets, it is expected to be overly crowded as it is each year. With cars lined up to park and shoppers lined up to enter stores like previous years, Adidas Store Manager Israel Lespron urges people to “wait till cyber Monday to do shopping because we are only allowed to let 60 shoppers in at a time.”
Adidas, along with many other stores at the Camarillo Outlets will also be closed on Thanksgiving, following with the hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Black Friday.
Lespron talked about he would like shoppers to know when coming into his store on Black Friday, “Please be patient and polite to everyone. There are going to be big lines everywhere,” Lespron stated.
