NEWS

Black Friday was Grey for Some Stores in Madison

Reporting By: Stephanie Liebergen

Videography By: Marie Joanis

While some people are giving money this holiday season, others are finding places to spend it.

Some businesses sold almost $30,000 of product this weekend, but some local stores did not see the same increase in sales.
The day after Thanksgiving typically marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, but for some local State Street businesses, Black Friday is just another day.

“It’s slower here because all the students are home, but two weeks ago we had parents weekend. And that was like our busy time,” said Kristin Hanefeld, BOP Assistant Manager. We’ll start picking up again so we’ll start picking up again for the holiday season, but this past weekend was a little slower.”

“This end of State Street usually gets pretty quiet on holidays,” said Donald Beauchamp, Digital Outpost Manager. “Historically most of the traffic is the square, and down this end with the students gone is steady but not [extremely busy]. Black Friday is not really our big day, let’s put it that way, compared to back to school it’s not even close.”

For other local stores, such as The Soap Opera, Thanksgiving weekend does provide a boost in sales.

“It was very busy, and it was a lot of fun, everyone was in a good mood and it was good weather,” said Chuck Bauer, owner of The Soap Opera. “And we enjoyed helping everybody out.”

The State Street shopping atmosphere is definitely different from holiday buying at East or West Towne Malls, but hopefully shoppers found the deals they were looking for.