Victor Freeman shops for Christmas presents for his one-week-old son and daughter at JC Penny at Hamilton Place Saturday afternoon. The manager of JC Penny expected traffic volume throughout the store to be about the same as Black Friday.Gloria Chambers carried a few small bags through J.C. Penney on Saturday, the very start of her shopping for the Christmas season.
The Saturday before Christmas is one of the busiest shopping days of the year, and this Saturday was expected to be second only to the Friday after Thanksgiving in terms of sales.
“They’re both very big, in terms of traffic,” said Marty Smith, manager of the J.C. Penney store at Hamilton Place mall. “But people shop differently than they do on Black Friday.”
At the beginning of the holiday season, shoppers tend to make bigger purchases or buy more, Smith said. In the last few days before Christmas, they’re just sort of filling in around the edges.
“Everybody’s got a few people left on their list,” he said.