Heavy weekend shopping has Albany stores thankful

ALBANY — While preliminary numbers tracked by the National Retail Federation indicate Thanksgiving weekend shopping was down this year, many Albany area retailers say they experienced increased traffic and sales.

According to the NRF’s Thanksgiving Weekend Survey conducted by Proper Insights & Analytics, 55.1 percent of expected holiday shoppers were in stores and shopping online over the weekend, down from 58.7 percent last year. That same report stated that overall shopper traffic from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday had dropped 5.2 percent from 2013.

Although hard numbers were not available for Albany, a number of retailers said they were busy all weekend and that traffic and sales not only met, but exceeded expectations.

Elyse Brown, who manages Albany’s Place on the Pointe, characterized that store’s holiday shopping weekend as “fabulous,” saying Black Friday and Small Business Saturday were incredibly successful and a lot of fun as shoppers really seemed to be in a holiday mood.

“They were record days,” said Brown.”Everyone was in Christmas mode. There was a festive air.”

Brown said that before the holiday she wasn’t sure how the weekend would turn out, since she’d noticed a lot of shoppers coming in early this year to get a jump start on a shorter Christmas shopping season. With Thanksgiving on the 27th, the period between it and Christmas is the second-shortest that it could be.

“I feel like people started shopping early this year,” Brown said. “We had a phenomenal October and a phenomenal November. Both were great. I really can’t remember such a short selling season as this year.”

Susan Snyder, store manager of Lee County’s Love Letters, echoed Brown’s sentiments, saying the shopping weekend was a success for the Ledo Road store, something that was slightly unexpected given the nature of the store’s business, which specializes in personalized gifts that often area monogrammed.

“We did really well,” Snyder said. “Our shoppers are looking for things that are personal and unique. They’re not looking for a TV or an Xbox. A lot of our customers are repeat customers and I noticed a lot of new faces this year, too, which is great to see.”

Like many other area retailers, Snyder attributes a lot of the store’s traffic to an increased push to support local businesses.

“Small Business Saturday was really, really nice,” Snyder said. “There was a lot of support for small business.”

Nancy Sullivan, co-owner of Albany’s Ginkgo, said the focus on small business helped her store as well.

Sullivan added that earlier in the fall shoppers seemed to be window shopping and looking for gift ideas rather than purchasing. Once the Thanksgiving shopping period hit, however, those patrons came in with a mission, looking for specific things to purchase.

Larger retailers in the Albany also said they saw a steady flow of traffic and increased sales through the weekend.

Michelle Kynoch, store manager of Dillard’s in Albany, said the weekend as a whole was definitely a success for the department store at the Albany Mall.

“I thought traffic was great this year,” Kynoch said. “That was wonderful. I would say that traffic and sales were up.”

Like some of the smaller retailers, Kynoch said the shorter shopping season likely played a part in the store’s success, but she also felt that Dillard’s had a good weekend thanks to many customers choosing to shop there based on the store’s decision not to open on Thanksgiving Day.

When many stores around the city made the decision to open on the Thanksgiving holiday — including many stores at the Albany Mall — Dillard’s executives decided to stay closed in order to let their employees spend the entire day with their families.

“We got a lot of good press about not opening on Thanksgiving,” Kynoch said. “We had a lot of customers come in and thank us and tell us that they waited to shop on Friday so they could shop with us. I think it was a positive decision for us.”

Jeremy Campbell, an assistant manager at Target, said that although he didn’t have official numbers, sales at the store were good and an improvement over last year’s Thanksgiving weekend.

“We did better than last year,” Campbell said. “The crowds were good. We’re anticipating that to continue through the holiday shopping season.”