Black Friday is back but it’s not what it used to be
Associated PressNEW YORK — On this year’s Black Friday, things almost seem normal. “I came here because I figured since it was Black Friday, they’d have the new Switch OLED in stock, but they didn’t,” said MacDonald, who waited an hour and a half to get in for the sought-after Nintendo video game console. “So I’m just going to go home, I guess.” The country’s largest mall, the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, said nearly 100,000 people had come as of early afternoon Friday, more than double last year but a bit shy of 2019 numbers. Big box retailers like Walmart, however, aren’t blasting “doorbuster” deals in their ads, said DealNews.com analyst Julie Ramhold. We call it our annual shopping outing.” Shoppers are expected to pay on average between 5% to 17% more for toys, clothing, appliances, TVs and others purchases on Black Friday this year compared with last year, according to Aurelien Duthoit, senior sector advisor at Allianz Research, with the biggest price increases on TVs.