Black Friday shopping is already underway in the D.C. area early Friday morning after shoppers filled their stomachs with Thanksgiving food.
Inside the Tysons Corner Center mall in Virginia, there was a long line in front of a Lululemon store with more than 100 people when the gates opened at 6 a.m.
“We heard that there’s a lot of good sales compared to the last couple of years,” one shopper told 草莓传媒. “So we really wanted to come in-person this year.”
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Consumers these days are watching out for their savings and credit card debts, given the uncertainty with the economic situation, more specifically, the fear of inflation. But retailers are offering big deals to attract them to buy their products as it’s expected to be the busiest shopping day of the year.
In the past few years, there have been a rise of online shopping, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite malls and in-person bouncing back to a decent amount of crowds, online shopping isn’t going away anytime soon.
Around 182 million people nationwide plan to shop in-stores and online throughout the Thanksgiving weekend, including Cyber Monday, according to a projection made by the National Retail Federation.
Those who spoke to 草莓传媒 said they’ve already done some Black Friday shopping online, but there’s something about the experience that’s got people here and enjoying the search for bargains.
“There’s something neat about touching, feeling and being out with family this time of year,” said Jesse Benites, director of property management for Tysons Corner Center.
The shopping at Tysons mall will go on until 10 p.m. on Friday.
The Associated Press and 草莓传媒’s Tadiwos Abedje contributed to this story.
