Mall traffic light on 2nd day

Could it have been the Georgia-Georgia Tech game? The rain? Post-Thanksgiving exhaustion?

Whatever it was, metro Atlanta’s malls were eerily quiet Saturday. At North DeKalb Mall, even jolly Santa Claus looked a little lonely. An hour after opening, only three photos had been shot, said Santa’s helper Ashley Kobleur.

“Black Friday, sleepy Saturday, dude,” said Stephanie Pischke, GameStop manager at the typically less-trafficked mall. “I wish money was coming in but —- we’re breathing, we’re catching up after [Friday.]”

There were more clerks than customers at the new Victoria’s Secret store at Perimeter Mall around 11 a.m. And at the Tiffany & Co. store at Phipps Plaza, clerks seemed to be fighting boredom around noon Saturday.

“People in Georgia don’t come out when it rains,” Perimeter clerk Cema Wallace said.

Whatever it was, without Black Friday’s door busters, shoppers weren’t busting down anything.

Experts are conflicted on how final tallies for Black Friday will fare. While the National Retail Federation expects holiday sales will rise 2.2 percent this year to $470.4 billion, Britt Beemer, CEO and founder of Charleston, S.C.-based America’s Research Group, estimates sales will be down 1 percent. That’s his first negative prediction in 23 years —- he’s been right 16 out of the past 17 years.

“This year looks so bad,” he said, “that even normally good signs for retail sales, such as more Americans staying home this Christmas, can’t save the season for retailers.”

Statistics on how much Americans shopped on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving plus the following weekend, won’t be known for several days. Typically, Black Friday kicks off the holiday shopping season, when many retailers become profitable for the year.

On Saturday, while some Atlanta malls were like ghost towns, discounters such as T.J. Maxx in Buckhead, Marshalls at Perimeter Mall and Ross at North DeKalb and Edgewood Retail District seemed steadily busy. At Atlantic Station, the longest lines seemed to be at the movie theater. Some shoppers said they came to buy for themselves, not for the holidays.

“If we spend $300 for Christmas, it’s a lot,” said Demetria Smith of Conyers, who shopped with her daughter Dominique, buying shoes at Nine West and a sweater at H&M. “Clothes are what we would get her anyway.”

Dennis Kemp, the general manager of Perimeter Mall, said that Black Friday itself was busy, especially from 1 p.m. on.

“Traffic and sales overall [were] equal and perhaps greater than last year,” he said in an e-mail.

Macy’s and Nordstrom “were slammed throughout the day,” he said.

On Saturday morning? Not so much.

Staff writer Nedra Rhone contributed to this report.