Predawn Black Friday shopping? Phhft.

Midnight’s where it’s at this year.

Enlarge this image

Vino Wong/vwong@ajc.com

Discover Mills in Lawrenceville and North Point Mall in Alpharetta will open at midnight, only a few hours after the Thanksgiving meal. Many Disney and KB Toy stores will be open as well.

Holiday Mall Hours

AJC.COM'S HOLIDAY GUIDE

• New Year's: Atlanta celebrates | The world | Send your photos | Your Resolutions?
• 2008's stupidest moment? Cast your vote
  • More Year in Stupid: The whole stupid story | Our stupid sing-along | Stupid in Atlanta | Oh, what a stupid world | Stupid celebs | Stupid products
• 2008's notable deaths: The 30 we'll miss the most | A month-by-month memorial
• Your photos: Hanukkah Pets | Santa Pets 8 | 9 | 10
• Plus: Recycle your tree | After-Christmas mall hours

Faced with a skittish consumer worried about the economy and still fearing the return of sky-high gas prices, some metro Atlanta malls and standalone retailers aren’t wasting a minute to entice reluctant Christmas shoppers through their doors.

For the first time, North Carolina-based Tanger Factory Outlet Centers is opening all its centers at midnight on Black Friday, including locations in Commerce and Locust Grove. Disney plans on opening half its 200 stores nationwide at midnight, some at malls that won’t otherwise be open, such as Town Center mall in Kennesaw. Many KB Toy stores will be up and running in the wee-est of the wee hours, too.

Among malls, North Point Mall in Alpharetta and the discount-oriented Discover Mills mall in Lawrenceville will be open at midnight.

Once there, and at other Simon malls later in the day, they’ll find new “rejuvenation stations” installed just for the holidays. The rest stops feature big-screen TVs, comfy seats, free Wi-Fi, beverages and even concierges in some locations to help keep shoppers going through the long night.

Other retailers are giving away door prizes to early shoppers, all in reaction to economic conditions that analysts say will turn the cheery — and impressionable — holiday shopper of Christmas past into a steely-eyed bargain hunter.

“This year, consumers are on a budget, and they mean it,” said National Retail Federation spokeswoman Ellen Davis.

Sales predictions range from downright dire to the modestly glum, and retailers are feeling the pressure, said Candace Collett, a principal with WSL Strategic Retail, a consulting firm.

“I think what retailers are doing is making certain that they don’t make a shopper have any reason not to come to their stores,” she said. “At this point in the game, that’s about all retailers can do.”

Advertising and promotion are also important, said Pam Goodfellow, a senior analyst with BIGresearch, which studies consumer behavior.

“Aggressive retailers pushing the advertisements and promotions early are going to get the jump,” she said.

Simon Property Group, which operates Discover Mills and several other metro Atlanta malls, is taking that approach, using e-mail blasts to send sales alerts to consumers.

Retailers also are returning to layaway as a means of attracting cash-conscious consumers, loosening return policies and handing out gift cards as door prizes and sales incentives like never before.

While consumer confidence is up slightly and gas prices are way down, Goodfellow said recent surveys show consumers are still much more worried about the economy than last year, and don’t trust that gas prices won’t spike again soon.

Because of that reluctance to spend, all the gimmicks may not make all that much difference for retailers at the end of what’s shaping up to be a very, very long day, said Collett.

Jennifer Rao of Sugar Hill is a Black Friday veteran, having waited in the predawn hours to shop at Best Buy, Target and other stores. Tuesday, though, Rao, standing inside Discover Mills mere feet from a sign touting the nocturnal shopping spree, said midnight is just too early to shop.

“It would have to be something really spectacular for me to be out at midnight,” Rao said.

Still, Clare Calabrese, a spokeswoman for The Mills malls, said experience has shown her company that midnight openings do bring new sales. But Collett said she suspects the early openings just provide a little more buzz for the legions of sports shoppers who have embraced Black Friday as a holiday in and of itself and would turn out no matter when stores open.

“There’s something exciting about being out in a store in the middle of the night,” she said.

The early openings might even cost some retailers, according to Collett. “They do have to turn the lights and the heat on,” she said. “That’s just more hours to operate.”

But with shoppers scarce and bargain-oriented like never before, it’s a risk retailers may have to take to make the best of the season, said Erin Hershkowitz of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

“Right now, the retailers and the centers are trying to get consumers to shop whenever they can,” she said.

And they mean it.

According to ICSC research, a whopping 99 percent plan to be open 24 hours a day at some point during the holiday season.

— Staff writers Dan Chapman, Tucker McQueen, Michelle Shaw and Donna Lewis contributed to this article.