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Area Shoppers & Stores Get Early Start To Black Friday

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Thousands of people flocked to the malls and shopping centers looking for  bargains on Black Friday, but that day may have lost some of its significance. That's partly due to the fact that more stores are opening on Thanksgiving, and at Eastview Mall, manager Mike Kauffman says the change began several years ago.

“It seems like it started 3 or 4 years ago and as time has gone on and the retailers have seen that they have success opening up on Thanksgiving evening, that word has spread, and we’re seeing more and more stores do it.”

At Eastview Mall, nearly 70 stores opened earlier than the general mall opening time of 6:00 a.m. on Friday.

At Marketplace Mall, General Manager Mike Wilmot says the number of stores that opened on Thanksgiving has been increasing there as well.

“Just in the last 4 or 5 years from the Midnight openings on Black Friday, to the last couple of years getting pushed back into Thanksgiving,  and to this year , basically we have almost half the mall open on Thanksgiving day by 6:00pm."

A number of national chains opened on Thanksgiving including WalMart, Target, Macys, Kohls, JC Penney and Best Buy.

The increasing amount of online shopping has probably cut into sales at traditional brick and mortar stores, although the mall managers say that  a lot of people still like the tradition of going out to the stores on Black Friday.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.