Recordpub.com - On the hunt for bargains: Portage shoppers out early

Midnight Madness Kasey Slaughter (age 12 - from Ravenna) - Kasey is looking over the Ornaments in the House of Holiday Ornaments. photo by Robert J. Lucas

By Mike Sever

Record-Courier staff writer

The biggest shopping day of the year dawned early for area retailers. Shoppers headed out in the dark, shrugging off cold temperatures and gusts that brought the first flakes of winter.

When Kohl’s in Stow opened at 4 a.m. it took more than six minutes for the crowd to enter the store, according to a store associate.

By 8 a.m. the parking lot was jammed and shoppers were leaving with loaded bags.

Melanie Haehner of Cuyahoga Falls and two friends were filling up the back of their minivan after shopping for two hours.

“We got what we wanted. We always find good deals,” Haener said. She said she plans to spend about the same this year as last while her shopping partner, Celeste Trace, also of Cuyahoga Falls, said she plans to spend less money this year.

“But you buy more because of the discounts,” Trace said.

This was the friends’ sixth or seventh annual Black Friday shopping foray. The three were on their way to the Target store next door, equipped with advertising fliers on which they’d circled items for the hunt.

For Jennifer Hockstra of Rootstown and her mother, Tijuana Hockstra of Maryland, Kohl’s was their second stop. They’d started their day at 5:30 a.m. at Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts where they’d scored a great price on a Cricet electronic cutter for scrapbooking.

“That’s her Christmas present,” Tijuana said.

Inside, aisles were full of shoppers checking out the bargains, looking for advertized specials.

At the front of the store, shoppers with crowded carts waited to be checked out to head to their next shopping stop.

Mary Rozum of Stow was just heading into the store shortly after 9 a.m. She said it was her first stop of the day.

“I know what I need, I’ve got my coupon. I’m going in and hopefully come out with it. The only thing is, I usually come out with more,” she said.

In Kent, the new shops on Main Street at Acorn Alley were drawing shoppers and browsers.

Jenna Heinaman, manager of the Off the Wagon toy store, said the store opened a half hour early at 9:30 a.m.

“It has been a very busy morning so far. That’s a good problem to have,’ Heinaman said.

Retailers in Ohio and across the country are hoping that Black Friday will up to its name as the biggest shopping day of the year.

Some analysts are predicting shoppers still hurting from the recession will cut back on holiday purchases again this year. Some stores, wary of having too many left over goods, have ordered smaller supplies of goods.

Also busy was the Streetsboro Kmart, which opened at a relatively leisurely 6 a.m.

“There were probably 300 to 400 people in line,” Store Manager Jeff Gundling said. “This is way busier than last year.”

At the Nike store at Aurora Farms, Premium Outlets, Nick Kitko and his two friends, all of Solon, were finding deals, including a T-shirt representing his favorite baseball player — Travis Hafner of the Cleveland Indians — for just less than $2.

“My buddies and I are pretty much obsessed with Nike apparel. We like to pretend we’re athletes,” Kitko, 20, said. “We’ll go home and come back this afternoon because there’s a sale on tennis shoes.”

Black Friday shoppers got an early start this year at Aurora Farms, when some stores opened at 10 p.m. Thanksgiving night.

Lisa Kusner, assistant general and marketing manager for the outlets, said the first shoppers — a group of three — arrived at 5:30 p.m., and by 10 p.m. several hundred people were waiting in line.

“Traffic backs up for miles. We shuttle people from the schools,” she said.

Bob Gaetjens, Gateway News editor, and Holly Schoenstein, Gateway News reporter, contributed to this report. The Gateway News is a sister publication of the Record-Courier.