Stores mark 'grand opening'

Imagine preparing for the Super Bowl, knowing the magnitude of the event and the enormous amount of preparation and planning that are involved. Well, welcome to the retail industry's big game, otherwise known as Black Friday.

"In the last quarter of the year, you prep so much coming up to this point," said Lisa McMillan, store manager of Dillard's at South Towne Center in Sandy. "You've got to have your sales people in place, trained and ready to service the customers as best they can. You've got to have your product in place."

She said everything has to be just right if stores like hers are going to get the most out of this critical time.

"It's like preparing for a play and today's is the grand opening," she added.

McMillan said though much of the emphasis on the holiday shopping season is focused on Black Friday, the entire last quarter of the year is what really matters to retailers.

"Fourth quarter is always super important to any retailer, no matter who you are," said McMillan. "The pressure is always there to perform well in the fourth quarter no matter how well you've done up until this point, always."

This year, McMillan said she was aided by the South Towne Center opening its doors to shoppers at 12:01 a.m., which meant people were already in the mall when Dillard's opened its doors at 7 a.m.

"Normally I don't get my (big) traffic hit of customers in until mid-afternoon because they were all going to those 3 a.m. openings," she said. "They'd go home, take a rest and come back in the afternoon. I got them early today, which is nice."

McMillan's competitor, national chain Macy's Inc., which has multiple department store locations throughout Utah — including the South Towne Center — has made it clear it will be aggressive in attracting business and about offering shoppers value this season.

"We are behind where we want to be at this time," said Terry Lundgren, CEO of both the namesake chain and Bloomingdales during a Friday interview. "We are counting on the fourth quarter to get there."

Black Friday isn't the busiest shopping day of the year — that distinction usually falls to the Saturday before Christmas. But Chicago-based ShopperTrak RCT Corp. suggests that might change this year.

Toys "R" Us CEO Gerald Storch, CEO of toy giant Toys "R" Us, which also had stores opening their doors at 5 a.m., is certainly thinking big. "We think (Friday's) going to be a whopper of a day," he said.