More than 500 hit Target by 5 a.m.

Hours after Porterville stores opened their doors for early morning Black Friday sales, coffee-carrying customers continued to trickle in.

Wanting to check off some items on his kids’ Christmas lists, Porterville resident Robert Rivera made Target his first stop just after 9 a.m., and his second stop at 10 a.m.

A brief stint at Wal-Mart to compare deals led him back to his original destination. He found a keyboard for $49, a 50 percent discount.

“I’ve been shopping for a keyboard for a long time,” he said. “I’ve seen some for as much as $150.”

Black Friday, perhaps the biggest shopping day of the year, infamously draws flocks of bargain hunting shoppers to retail stores nationwide.

As many as 134 million consumers will take advantage of the limited-time offers this weekend, according to estimates released by the National Retail Federation.

Rivera beat the rush that Target employees greeted at 5 a.m., but he missed out on the free designer shopping bags that were doled out to the first 500 people in line.

“We ran out before we got to the end of the line,” Store Manager Paul  Tuttle said. “That was quite nice.”
Refraining from optimistic hopes that Friday would be a barometer for the rest of the holiday season, Tuttle said the second wave of shoppers that filed in at about 8 a.m. surpassed expectations.  

He ventured that those shoppers were probably on return trips from the Preferred Outlets in Tulare that opened at midnight.

The yellow “Price Cut” tags hanging from shelves even lured Porterville resident Vickie Velarde, who was not quite ready to start her holiday shopping.

She started at 9 a.m. in search of pots and pans for her son, who is away attending college.

“I figured if I get here and what I want is still here, I did good,” she said.

For the first time at Anchor Blue, gift cards — for as much as $250 — were doled out to the first 50 families who arrived when the store opened at 7 a.m.

The give away and $19.99 denim jeans likely drew the small bunch of 25 people that had gathered outside the store, according to Manager Angela Hernandez.

“I didn’t really expect anybody,” she said. “I was kind of surprised.”

-- Contact Jenna Chandler at 784-5000, Ext. 1050, or jchandler@portervillerecorder.com.