The Ebb and Flow of Black Friday

The bargain bonanza known as Black Friday is getting longer, but that doesn’t mean every extra hour of shopping time is filled with wall-to-wall crowds.
The rushes that greet a store’s Friday morning (or Thanksgiving night) opening tend to die down in a matter of hours.
Officials at both Cottonwood Mall and Coronado Center reported that their Black Friday crowds came in waves. The first rush occurred from their midnight openings until around 3 a.m.
“It’s a madhouse (to start) and, three hours later, it’s just like a regular Wednesday afternoon,” said Simon Property Group’s Jeremy Strife, an area general manager for Cottonwood and ABQ Uptown. “It’s unbelievable, but it gives us time to regroup.”
Strife said Cottonwood experienced another spike from 6-9 a.m., then a slowdown. Traffic rose again around noon and then stayed steady the rest of the day.
Coronado Center General Manager Randy Sanchez reported a similar pattern.
The mall experienced its second rush around 5 a.m. but slowed around 8 a.m. Crowds began building again around 10 a.m., peaked near 2 p.m. and remained strong until around 7 p.m.
The lulls happened outside of the mall, too.
The Target on Paseo del Norte NE, for example, had a line wrapped around its building when it opened at 9 p.m. Thursday. By 1:30 a.m. Friday, convenient parking spots were readily available, shoppers had plenty of elbow room and employees had enough free time to tidy the store.