Among the many Durango shoppers searching for hot deals on Black Friday, Teresa Campbell left Walmart with a car full of Christmas cheer for her family.
She tracked down memory cards and what she believed to be the last air fryer in the store, even after she was told they had sold out.
“You can find some things that you are looking for, if you keep your eyes open,” she said.
Her biggest score was a drone that she planned to give to her 12-year-old grandson.
“People were stopping me, asking me where I got it,” she said.
Campbell goes to the Black Friday sales annually and found the atmosphere in Walmart better than normal, with cheerful shoppers.
On one of the nation’s biggest shopping days of the year, Durango residents and visitors seemed to be getting in the consumer spirit, packing the parking lots at Walmart and the Durango Mall and crowding the sidewalks along Main Avenue.
Nationally, holiday sales were expected to increase by 3.6 percent up to $655.8 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.
In Durango, downtown merchants typically see their peak sales in December, according to city sales data.
“Not only is it the best month of year, it gets better and better every year,” said Tim Walsworth, executive director of the Business Improvement District.
At Lively, a boutique downtown, the staff saw a steady steam of tourists and locals shopping the store’s 15 percent off sale, Manager Misty Taylor said.
“It’s one of my busiest days ever,” Owner Johnna Bronson said.
Lively and several other downtown merchants held Black Friday sales, but many wait until Noel Night on Dec. 2.
Noel Night sales typically run all day and help kick off the holiday shopping season downtown, Walsworth said.
He is hoping to see a 2 to 3 percent increase in sales this December compared with the holiday shopping season last year.
Sales in Durango have been slightly unpredictable this year, with three months of declines so far compared with the same periods last year.
It is likely that downturns in the oil and gas industry and internet sales could be cutting into retail sales, experts say.
Amanda Lozano was visiting from Los Lunas, New Mexico, and stopped into J.C. Penney on Friday, but she was not looking for anything specific because she finished her shopping online this week.
“Since Monday, the deals were just as good,” she said.
Several other people at the mall also expected to shop online this year.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
