If you are a part of the Lane family, there are two rules for shopping on Black Friday:
You must be 13 or older. No men allowed.
Then, be ready to go once Thanksgiving dinner is over. Three generations of the Lane family sit down with advertisements and map out a plan: Who’s going to Wal-Mart, Target or the malls? Which items do they need, how many and what sizes?
Then, family members head out but not before putting on their bright pink shirts that read “My official Black Friday shirt,” and carrying matching shoulder bags embroidered with their first-name initial.
Marnie Stephens of Newnan, who started the shopping tradition with her mother and sister more than 20 years ago, waited outside Wal-Mart for more than three hours starting Thursday night. After buying a Nook Color, she headed off to Belk to meet her sister. The rest of the family drove over from Carrollton and met them at a Dunkin Donuts for breakfast at 3 a.m.
Then, in a rented 15-person van, they headed to North Point Mall.
Why is 13 the magical age for what the family considers a rite of passage?
“We don’t want them to whine,” Stephens said.
She and her clan were part of the reason area malls were reporting good crowds and upbeat consumers Friday.
Nationally, the National Retail Federation is predicting holiday sales online and in stores will be up 4.1 percent from last year, to $586.1 billion in spending in November and December. Last year, holiday sales were up 5.6 percent after the NRF predicted just a 2.8 percent increase.
“There’s a lot of good deals here and the stores have a lot of help,” said J.D. DiCioccio, general manager of Town Center at Cobb.
Local retailers pushed their own deals and were happy with the results so far.
“We’ve started promoting our own Black Friday,” said Matthew Hott, general manager of the Cook’s Warehouse at Ansley Mall. Hott said the steady flow of customers would pick up after they hit the malls and big box stores. “We’re going to see a big influx of people around 1 p.m. after they take a nap and eat some lunch and get re-energized.”
