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Shoppers flock to Nevada stores
When the electronics went on sale at the Nevada Wal-Mart Supercenter at midnight on Black Friday the activity in the store was "nuts; ridiculous," according to cashier Erin Quest.
All of the electronic items, especially "TVs were hot," Quest said. One shopper was in the store just after 6 a.m. to get a TV, but he said that he couldn't find one. "They're all gone," he said. The X Box Kinect, Kindle Fire, Wii, laptops and other electronics sold well, according to Quest as did clothing, towels and cookware. Most of the frenzy was over by 6 a.m.
Rusty Palmer of El Dorado Springs, Mo., isn't usually in the store at 6:30 a.m. on a Friday morning, but he was yesterday. He got there by accident. He had gone to Orschelns to buy a vacuum cleaner, but "the parking lot was completely full, so I decided to come over here," Palmer said.
Had Palmer been at the Wal-Mart at midnight he would have found the same thing. "Our parking lot was full, the parking lot over there was full" (the lot by the strip mall east of the Wal-Mart). The lot at the gas station was full and the "lot at the Burger King was full" and people were walking to the store to shop, according to cashier Samantha Fritts. "We had everybody from young kids to old people here," Quest said.
Orschelns wasn't open at midnight, but as soon as the doors opened at 6 a.m., they were busy. Manager Becky Toland said she didn't think the store was as bustling as last year, but she did think sales were as good. Toland said gun safes sold well, as did some LED lights they stock. The store had already sold several cases of windshield washer that was buy one, get one free and bib overalls were a good selling item, too.
The local Sears store opened at 4 a.m. and sales are "going real good," Manager Steve Knowles said. As soon as they opened, they "were swamped for a couple of hours, it's been steady since," he said.
Tools were the hot item in Knowles' store.
"Tools always sell fast" this time of year, he said. He added they have been selling appliances and even sold a mower or two. Sales seemed about the same as last year, and the store has hired some seasonal help to meet customer demand.
The Family Dollar Store had their big sale on Thursday. "We did really good yesterday," Manager Sharon Miller said, but today is about like a normal day.
Miller said toys were the going thing in her store and there were some problems with people having to wait in line, but they seemed to understand that with just two registers, a wait was inevitable, Miller said.
The parking lot at Wal-Mart wasn't full at mid-morning on Friday, but the store was still full of shoppers.
Half of the store's 21 registers were open and none of them had a long line. Assistant Manager Bryan Emmet said "lots of people are coming back in getting stuff left from last night."
Emmet said that guns and ammo were moving well and "toys are selling sound." He reported few problems with shoppers, saying only that some "were a little anxious on the smart phones" last night.
That may be due to the fact that the Nevada Police Department had three officers in the store for the annual event.
The evening and morning hours passed quietly and Quest said she thought the officers only had one incident of shoplifting during the night.
The mid-morning crowd was calm and many of the shoppers were winding down from the night's activity.
"It's been a wild night," said Loretta Gabriel of Butler. Gabriel had spent the night shopping in Springfield and decided to stop in Nevada on her way home. She has 20 grandkids to buy gifts for this year.
Though Gabriel had some balls, toys and movies in her cart, she said she was trying to get things her family members could use.
She had purchased several pairs of jeans. She said she was looking mostly for "anything on sale," but she was glad she had stopped in Nevada because, "it's very mellow here; you can at least walk through the aisle."
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