Lines for pictures with Santa, store fronts decorated with limited-time sales and shoppers weighed down with plastic bags and food court pretzels kicked off the 2024 holiday shopping season on Black Friday at the Oaks Mall in Gainesville.  

Store management at Belk said the foot traffic for the department store and the mall in general was more than expected. They could see a visible difference from previous years when in-person shopping dwindled during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Staying consistent with previous Black Fridays at Belk was the selling through of cosmetics and fragrances that make popular stocking stuffers.  

Aljandro Bejar is in his first year selling calendars and games at the Go! Calendars & Games retail kiosk near the Loft entrance of the mall. He said while he noticed long lines in larger stores like JC Penny, the location of his kiosk paired with technology changing customer preferences weakened the Black Friday turnout at his register.  

“Lots of people are finding the calendar they want online,” he said. “Many people also use smartphones, tablets and smart watches to keep track of their schedules instead of print.” 

Even with instant access to online deals on smartphones, stores still attracted crowds of younger clientele this year. But they’re going to have to up their sales game if they want to keep them.  

Galeisha Miller, 21, lives close to the mall and came to Forever 21 to look for hoodies. Miller said she’s not comfortable shopping online with having to try different sizes, but she’ll have to rely on Cyber Monday this year because a lot of the in-person sales had fine print and weren’t as generous as they seemed. 

“I was talking with my mom, and in the early 2000s, it was better than this,” she said. “Now all the sales have exceptions.” 

Madison Miller, 21, also said that even though she was generally pleased with the Black Friday sales this year, they weren’t what they used to be. 

“We used to go [shopping] early in the morning,” she said, “but now there’s no doorbusters.” Miller added the economy likely played a role in weakening this year’s Black Friday deals.  

American consumers were expected to spend some $10.8 billion on Black Friday, although more than 70% would be online. That’s almost a 10% increase over 2023, when U.S. shoppers spent $9.8 billion on Black Friday.