Square Quiet on Black Friday

Last Friday, while bargain hunters nationwide trampled each other to get their hands on early-bird sales, Harvard Square greeted a much calmer “Black Friday.”

From Maine to California, customers fought to get their hands on door buster deals for the latest gadgets, according to Joel Corbett, a manager at the RadioShack in Harvard Square. Some retailers even had to limit the number of shoppers entering a store at one time, he added.

But in Harvard Square, the void of students with their parents’ credit cards and lack of adequate parking spaces meant stores weren’t flooded with bargain-crazed shoppers.

“Black Friday for us isn’t the ‘Black’ Friday that Macy’s or Target experience,” said Bill Diamond, the general manager of Curious George Goes to WordsWorth, a children’s books and toys shop in the Square. Diamond nevertheless said he expects to see increased business in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Michelle Benoit, a manager at ALDO, said students, who form one-third of the store’s customer base, leave town for Thanksgiving weekend, impacting the store’s holiday sales. The shoe retailer also did not provide door buster discounts like other stores.

Black Friday, a decades-long tradition named as such because retailers move into the black and start earning a profit, has become one of the busiest shopping days of the year in recent years.

On Friday, Americans nation-wide doled out $8.96 billion on purchases—a six percent increase from the same day last year, according to Chicago-based consumer data collection firm ShopperTrak.

Yet some view the consumption frenzy encouraged by Black Friday sales as problematic.

Lama Surya Das, a Buddhist leader who heads the Dzogchen Center in Cambridge, views after-Thanksgiving sales as a “surfeit of materialism,” and instead advocates “Buy Nothing Day.”

“I think we’re becoming somewhat of a throw-away society rather than valuing things,” Das said, according to a press release issued by Adbusters Media Foundation, a Vancouver-based advocacy group which is the primary supporter of “Buy Nothing Day.”

The movement, a campaign against overconsumption during the holiday season which calls for environment-friendly and socially responsible purchases, has been celebrated in over 60 countries since 1992, saving over one million people from “the marketing consumer binge,” according to Chris Probert, the social marketing manager of Adbusters.

“It’s not only about changing your habits on one day, but thinking about a lifestyle commitment to consuming less and producing less waste,” Probert said.

Today, though, is Cyber Monday, the unofficial start of the online shopping season.

Berk’s shoe store, a locally-owned corner shop on JFK and Winthrop Streets, is one business that is expanding its reach by emphasizing online sales.

Marc Pinansky, Berk’s manager, said online sales have increased at least 30 to 40 percent over the last year and said the store hopes the numbers will rise even further as the holiday shopping season kicks off.

“People are buying things online, and it’s been great. It’s all for themselves so far, but gift-giving will start sooner or later,” he said.

Despite anti-consumption efforts and attempts to direct the shopping traffic online, the crowd of shoppers in Harvard Square went from store to store to find gifts for loved ones.

“I want to give daddy a black horn necklace,” said Caroline Clanton, an 11-year-old visitor from the Jersey shore, who said she wanted to go out on Black Friday ever since she found out about it. She had been unsuccessful in her efforts to find one as of Friday evening, but said she is not giving up hope.