Every year since she was 16 Jennifer Cornett of Bellevue has been among the masses that brave cold, crowds and sleep deprivation to shop the Friday after Thanksgiving.
While her goal has changed during those 18 years — from getting fun stuff for herself to snagging bargains for her four children and family members — two things never change: deals and layers.
There always are bargains that draw Cornett to certain stores at specific times. And if temperatures fall below 20 degrees she knows to don thermal underwear, three shirts, three pair of socks, jeans, boots and a coat.
“We saved loads of money and we're happy,” Cornett said Friday just after 5 a.m. in the Shadow Lake J.C. Penney's.
Retailers are counting on die-hards like Cornett as well as first-timers to make this the best holiday shopping season since 2006. The National Retail Federation predicts holiday sales will be up by 2.3 percent over last year, to more than $447.1 billion.
Estimates by two retail trade groups suggested that between 78 million and 138 million American shoppers opened their wallets on Black Friday. And the deals continue through the weekend, both in stores and online.
Many shoppers were expected to scoop up electronics. Cornett and her shopping buddy Janelle Shere went to three Toys R Us stores in search of the advertised $79.99 Sylvania netbook computer. No luck.
So the women changed tactics and got Walmart to match the price of the Toys R Us offer. They ended up with four Acer netbooks between them — originally priced at $248 each.
That one might go into Cornett's repertoire of Black Friday war stories. Among her other stories is one from her first year, when she watched two women fighting over a store's last Cabbage Patch doll, only to have a third woman take the doll from a cart while the other two were distracted.
That memory keeps her 24.5-hour shopping marathon incident-free.
Between 7 a.m. Thursday and 7:30 a.m. Friday — with breaks for Thanksgiving dinner and a 1 a.m. breakfast at Perkins — Cornett and Shere shopped in 12 stores in Omaha, Papillion, Bellevue and Council Bluffs.
“We're delirious,” Cornett said as she pulled into her driveway.
Her children still asleep, Cornett said she planned to hide the gifts, take a nap and be up in time to watch the Nebraska-Colorado football game on TV.
Nearly all of the more than 20 shoppers interviewed early Friday morning were after a specific product.
For Molly Stogdill of Council Bluffs it was a $349.99, 40-inch LCD TV advertised by Nebraska Furniture Mart. She got in the nonvoucher line at 11:30 Thursday night to be sure she'd get one of the 100 available.
In Scottsbluff, Kristen Foos and Seth Marsh of Torrington, Wyo., arrived at Target at 12:15 a.m. They had planned to wait in the car, but when they saw others arriving at the same time, Foos and Marsh ran to be first in line.
“We're here for the TV,” Foos, 22, said. “It's $298 for a 40-inch flat screen.”
A spokesman for the Scottsbluff Target said about 600 people were waiting when the store opened.
Becca Gunderson, 17, of Gretna ripped the plastic wrap off a pallet of bath towels at the Papillion Walmart so she could buy her grandmother four of them at $1.33 each. Her friend, Brittany French, wanted picture frames at Gordmans for her future college dorm room.
Keri and Phillip Carpenter got to Gordmans at approximately 12:30 a.m.
“First in line means first pick,” Keri said.
The Carpenters said they already had finished their holiday shopping. Friday was about deals for them.
Omahans Ana Nava, 23, and Itzel Franco, 21, wrapped themselves in blankets so they could get $7 boots from Gordmans. When the doors opened at 5 a.m., the women screamed with delight and made a beeline for the shoe department.
Bags distributed to customers for an additional 25 percent off were gone in 5 minutes. Last year, a store manager said, there still were bags at 7:30 a.m.
Sue Wisehart — another Black Friday die-hard, with about 20 years' experience — said she got to Kohl's, on 72nd Street across from the Furniture Mart, at 6 a.m. but panicked when she thought there were no more comforters in the color her granddaughter wanted.
The store opened at 3 a.m., so she wondered if she had missed out. She checked again and found the last one.
“It's probably half price,” said the grandmother of three. “I'm very pleased. My granddaughters are expensive.”
A bargain laptop computer drew Yifan Lin, 19, Yunqing Ji, 20, and Qian Zhang, 24, to the Best Buy in Papillion at 4 p.m. Thursday. The three, business students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, were first in line when the store opened at 5 a.m., to ensure they got what they came for.
According to Best Buy's newspaper advertisement, only 10 of the laptops would be available at each store.
“Sometimes they only have three,” Lin said.
For him, it wasn't about being first. It was about getting the deal. “We're crazy. It's really cold. I cannot feel my feet.”
This account includes material from the Scottsbluff Star-Herald.
Contact the writer: 402-444-1037, [email protected], twitter.com/SaundersM
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