Shoppers make merry: Gift cards, time off add up to brisk sales on day after Christmas

Shoppers wait in line to return items during day-after-Christmas shopping Friday at Best Buy on U.S. Highway 153 in Chattanooga.
Shoppers wait in line to return items during day-after-Christmas shopping Friday at Best Buy on U.S. Highway 153 in Chattanooga.

Even fugitives were among the day-after-Christmas returns Friday morning in Chattanooga.

Venturing into the post-Christmas shopping frenzy, a man wanted for crimes in Red Bank was spotted at Hixson's Best Buy and arrested on his way out the door, then hauled off to jail.

Monty McAllister, general manager, noted that wasn't the norm at his store.

But everything else about Friday was: Customers with pockets newly lined with Christmas cash, folks with no idea how to work their new electronics and those coming in to spend gift card money.

"Your sales tend to pick up every single year because of gift cards," said McAllister. "I'm a big believer in gift cards myself."

McAllister hands out cards to his employees at Christmas.

"It's always the perfect color, it's always the perfect size and it always fits their needs," he said.

According to the National Retail Federation, gift cards are bigger now than ever. The industry watch group estimates that Americans spent more than $31 billion on gift cards this year, a record high.

Many local retailers have a hard time ranking the day after Christmas on an all-time best shopping days list, but most agree: Black Friday is first, the Saturday before Christmas follows and then there's back-to-school shopping and after-Christmas shopping, thanks largely to gift cards.

Gift cards tend to lure people out of the house on the day after Christmas, when that money typically goes further thanks to post-holiday sales and promotions.

Best Buy is having storewide sales and maintaining extended hours through mid-January to help working customers find time to come in and make exchanges and use gift cards.

Northgate Mall also kept longer hours on Friday, the mall's management fully aware that the day after Christmas is a huge shopping day.

Northgate opened at 7 a.m. on Friday and remained open until 9 p.m.

Christie Ellis, owner of Rebel Soul, said the day after Christmas is always "one of our biggest shopping days."

Friday afternoon, customers milled around inside her shop.

Gift cards are what bring out many day-after-Christmas shoppers, said Ellis, along with "exchanges, of course."

"We sold a lot of gift certificates this year," she said. "It was a really big Christmas for us."

Ellis said the day after Christmas is always "definitely busier than a normal day, because people are off and want to spend their Christmas money."

At the other end of Northgate Mall on Friday, Kevin Fugate waited on a bench with the kids while his wife, Cheri, returned some boots at Shoe Dept. Encore.

The Fugates drove to the Hixson mall from their home in McDonald, Tenn., in Bradley County.

Cheri returned the boots -- a gift from Kevin -- for one simple reason.

"I hated them," she said. "They hurt my toe."

"You didn't tell me you hated them," said Kevin.

Cheri said that, instead of picking up a replacement, she was going to put the money toward a good cause.

"I'm going to put it back in the bank," she said.

For other shoppers, meanwhile, day-after-Christmas sales were not about spending gift cards or money, but about picking up gifts for the last remaining holiday get-togethers.

Steve Pell bought a few things Friday for the family Christmas celebration he will attend today.

"You can't go to both of [the family events] on Christmas," he said. "So we can still shop to Saturday."

Pell got a last-minute gift for his daughter and a thing or two for himself, after his wife headed off to work.

"She leaves, and I get some stuff for myself," he said. "When you get retired, you do some strange things."

Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.

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