Get Ready, Get Set, Get in Line

Home values may be dropping, and food and gasoline prices are higher this year. But that didn't stop hordes of bleary-eyed, tryptophan-high bargain hunters from braving bone-chilling cold in the wee hours of Black Friday for extreme bargains at malls, and big box and department stores throughout Utah County and the state.

Retailers like Mervyns, J.C. Penney and Kohl's -- trying to buck forecasts that this holiday season could be the weakest in five years because of higher energy costs, tighter credit and a weak housing market -- all opened at 4 a.m. Friday, dangling early-bird specials on electronics, clothes, toys, DVDs and other gifts to lure customers out of bed.

Mervyns in Orem upped the ante by being one of the few retailers to offer free money in the form of $10 gift cards to its first 250 shoppers. That strategy, plus the 4 a.m. opening, helped attract nearly 700 people to the department store this year, more than twice than last year, said Tammy Heaton, Mervyns's store manager.

"All the gift cards were gone within two minutes of opening. In fact we had to comp one of our shoppers who had a $10 gift card ripped out of her hand because it was one of the last few we had," she said. "It helped that our doorbusters were good, like the 'buy one get two free' on all fleece and hoodies for men, and the Heelys shoes," Heaton said. The Heelys, lightweight athletic shoes that feature a single wheel in the heel, were a hot item at $34.99 a pair instead of the usual $65.

"Pricewise, they've never been that cheap," she said. "One customer was standing in line with 10 pairs."

Amy Barnes agreed. One of the first shoppers to arrive at Mervyns at 1:30 a.m. Friday with her husband, Andrew, and her brother and two sisters in tow, she was at the checkout lines by 4:30 a.m. with men's hoodies, Heelys shoes, baby clothes and fleece throws.

"It's fun, freezing our butts off. The sales on the toys, clothing and shoes are good. Plus we're getting free money. That's why we're doing this," Barnes said. She remained upbeat even though she lost her $10 gift card in the shopping melee.

The scene was similar at various malls and stores across Utah County -- jam-packed parking lots before day break.

At Target in Orem, lines began forming at 9 p.m. on Thursday. By 6 a.m. Friday, when the store threw open its doors, more than 1,000 restless people stampeded into the store, some screaming, to get at the deals, especially in electronics.

Hot items including the $85 Guitar Hero III bundle for PlayStation 2 with two guitar controllers, which normally retails for $109.99, and the $89 Kodak MD853 slim digital camera, which normally costs $149.99 -- were flying off the shelves. Another favorite was the Extreme Video Rockers with built-in powered subwoofers and speakers. Those were going at an early bird special of $32 instead of the usual $59.99.

Carl Dastrup of Moab, who has eight children, loaded up his cart with five Extreme Video Rockers at Target. "We were at Toys 'R' Us and Wal-Mart at 5 a.m., but all the Rockers were gone within minutes. We're lucky to get these here."

Randy Jensen of Orem swept more than 10 Digital Picture Frames, each retailing for nearly $50, into his cart within five minutes of Target's opening. "It's Christmas, and we have 12 kids," he grinned.

Retailers, which depend on holiday shopping for up to 40 percent of their annual sales, are counting on customers like Barnes, Dastrup, Jensen and others who've been holding back in recent months amid a challenging economy to snap up bargains.

The race to get consumers' dollars has intensified in light of historic gas price levels, food costs and mortgage concerns. According to the Discover US Spending Monitor, more than 60 percent of consumers said in a survey last week that they are expecting to spend less on holiday shopping this year.

The National Retail Federation expects sales to rise 4 percent this holiday season, which includes November and December -- the slowest growth since a 1.3 percent rise in 2002. Holiday sales rose 4.6 percent in 2006 and growth has averaged 4.8 percent over the last decade. Mall traffic has also been dropping, and ShopperTrak, which measures customer traffic in malls, expects a 2.5 percent drop in overall foot traffic this holiday.

In fact, many retailers are so worried that customers would be conservative in their spending this holiday season that they pulled out the stops well before the traditional day-after-Thanksgiving kickoff.

Wal-Mart began slashing prices as early as Oct. 1 in key categories including toys, home and apparel. It also launched its doorbuster deals on Nov. 2 instead of waiting until Black Friday as it did in past years, and announced additional secret specials like the $399 PlayStation 3 bundle with 10 free Blue-Ray movies valued at $300, that would be available in stores today.

Black Friday specials like the Polaroid 42-inch LCD HDTV for $798 had shoppers lining as early as 8 p.m. Thursday at the Orem Wal-Mart store, which opened at 5 a.m., said Store Manager Cija Doyle. The original price was $1,198.

"We had 46 of those 42-inch TVs this year, as opposed to just six last year," she said. By 8:30 a.m., only two were left.

One Wal-Mart associate said she was knocked over by eager shoppers when she started opening the pallets for the Venturer 8-inch Digital Picture Frames, which were retailing at $49.84 on Black Friday instead of the usual $99.84. "All three pallets, about several hundred of them, were gone in two minutes."

For the second year in a row, CompUSA stores opened their doors on Thanksgiving Day from 9 p.m. to midnight, and this year, served up free pumpkin pie along with such early-bird specials as 14.1-inch HP Pavilion Notebooks for $499.99, and 37-inch Olevia LCD flat-panel HDTV for $599.99.

Apparel retailer Old Navy offered free MP3 players, valued at $40 and preloaded with free tunes, with clothing purchases of $20 or more.

These extreme bargains are a big draw for customers like Ladonna Lovendahn of Orem, who has nine children, and plans to only spend $600 this year, compared with $1,000 last year. "Things are more expensive this year, and there aren't as many bargains too," she said.

Not all shoppers are concerned with the economic uncertainty. Jensen of Orem plans to spend more than $1,000 this year on his family's Christmas gifts, while Jill Ford of Heber City, another early-bird shopper at Mervyns, said strategizing with her family to get the best bargains is a bigger concern than gas prices.

Ford, who was at Mervyns with three of her five daughters since 2 a.m. Friday, had spread out shopping duties among her daughters to be efficient. "I have two other daughters who were at Provo Towne Centre for free goody bags. After this, we're heading to Victoria's Secret, which is giving away free Supermodel Totes filled with beauty products (valued at $75) with every $60 purchase."