Consumer Mania Sets in on Thanksgiving Weekend in San Angelo

Thousands of San Angeloans queued up for bargains Thanksgiving evening, some wearing scowls and others with smiles as they pushed through the masses in search of electronics, kitchenware and clothing.

Best Buy was once again a popular stop for many this year, with hundreds waiting in a line that wrapped around to the back of the building, many still stuffed from Thanksgiving dinner.

Sal Barrera, a Best Buy manager, said they were letting people into the store in groups of 15-20 to cut back on the madness. The method is one the retailer incorporated last year, Barrera said, however this year Best Buy had two different operating periods with a break in between, so he couldn’t estimate how busy the store will be.

“Last year it ran all the way through, this year it’s separated, so we don’t know what it will look like [later and] we don’t know what it will look like in the morning. So it’s kind of unchartered territory.”

The hot item this year, he said, is the televisions, however those were ticketed to the shoppers standing in line and by 5:30 p.m.—30 minutes after opening—all of the tickets were gone.

“I was actually here to get a TV and the grey beats (headphones),” said Marcelo Baldeon, who was in town from Oklahoma City shopping with his brother.

“The TV I wanted was gone,” his brother Marco Baldeon said. The brothers were looking for either Panasonic or Phillips sets that had been knocked down a couple hundred bucks for the sales event.

With a line kept tidy by a row of bicycle racks and at least a couple hundred slowly-shuffling customers, the brothers said the experience was actually much more pleasant than anticipated.

“Me, honestly, sometimes I get nervous coming out here because fights and stuff happen, you know?” Marcelo said. “I like coming to Best Buy because not everybody’s out of control. I mean, people do like rush to the door like normal people would, but nothing really dramatic.”

Arriving at roughly 4:45 p.m., the two stood in line for about 45 minutes before going in and shopping and were finished within an hour. They said they’d heard people began to gather at around 3 p.m. on Wednesday for the super-sale, but neither said they’d be willing to camp out for a television set.

Another woman was waiting in line with her daughter to buy an Xbox One for her son as a Christmas present. She estimated a savings of roughly $100 and said the shopping trip has become a sort of tradition in her family.

“We’ll do some more shopping,” she said as she neared the door. Best Buy was not the only stop on the list.

And while the shopping experience at Best Buy may have been a bit subdued, the Walmart on Sherwood Way was packed so full the overflow began to fill the Lowe’s parking lot next door.

Hundreds of people pushed and squeezed through aisles that resembled a poor game of Tetris, shopping carts—both full and abandoned—being steered and scooted every which way as people sought lines for merchandise and checkout.

Near the front of the food entrance, Deputy Long with the Tom Green County Sheriff’s Office was busy directing traffic along the yellow caution tape prohibiting entrance to the zone in front of the cash registers.

“It hasn’t even started yet,” he said at just before 6 p.m., when the first big sale was slated to begin. “We’ve got, I think eight [deputies] here. We’ll be here until about 1 o’clock. We’ll see how things go.”

As the ever-growing sea of people began trying to push forward with no success, confusion became apparent; some wandering back and forth trying to find access to the cash registers, others trying to figure out which line was meant for what.

“If you’re trying to find a cash register, you need to go this way,” called a co-manager out to the masses. Immediately heads turned and a chorus of sighs and “ohs” was heard among the people as they attempted weave their way through the maze of carts and caution tape to the register lines in apparel.

Weaving around to the back of the store, shoppers grabbed box after box of kitchen items—almost at the rate of at least one per cart—on the way to electronics, where carts clashed in an odd dive for floor mats.

Ashley Gould, who was armed with a list of items she and friend Lauren Trujillo were tasked with acquiring for those not so daring in the consumer mania, called out that she felt she’d been in the same spot for 20 minutes, indicating Trujillo had time to grab something quick.

“My friends and I just do it for fun,” Gould said. “I did get an iPad Mini, but other than that [it’s just for fun]. It’s pretty crazy. We think it’s fun to talk to people and interact. It’s usually pretty tame here. [The line to the cash register] is the worst part of it. Whoever gets finished first usually goes and waits.”

Once they’d discovered where to go, shoppers cut through less popular aisles to queue up in the clothing section, where yellow tape marked off lanes to the cash registers. Early in the evening the checkout process was running smoothly and comparable to the lines formed at theme parks, with expediters running back and forth directing shoppers to open registers.

By 7 p.m., “Black Thursday” was in full swing and the parking lots jammed with slow-moving traffic. Many retailers remained open through the night until this morning; others closed and re-opened in the early a.m.

For a continuation of Friday schedules, click here.