Bangor resident Sarah Eremita has been a devoted Black Friday shopper for as long as she can remember. For years, she’s gotten up at the crack of dawn the day after Thanksgiving to line up at stores along Hogan Road and Stillwater Avenue in Bangor to get the best deals. She and her friends usually stay up all night, shop, eat breakfast and then go home and crash. It’s a fun yearly ritual.
This year, however, Eremita was flying solo, and sailed in and out of Kohl’s, JCPenney, Walmart and Target in record time. The lines were nothing like the ones of years past, where hundreds of shoppers would camp out at stores in the wee, chilly hours of the morning.
“It was unbelievable. There were just no lines. I was in and out of each store in 15 minutes. There were people there, but it was totally manageable,” Eremita said. “Everything is online. You can get all the Black Friday deals early now. There’s almost nothing you can get in store that you can’t get online. It’s just not the same.”
That was a shame for Belfast resident Tim Wry, who lined up at Target around 6:30 a.m. with his daughter, 11-year-old Charlotte, who wanted to see what Black Friday was all about. It was a pretty relaxed affair, overall — a long way from the stories of shoving matches breaking out at Walmart over Tickle Me Elmos.
“We’re just here for the experience. I’ve never been Black Friday shopping before, and neither has she. She really wanted to see what it’s like,” Wry said. “I don’t think anybody’s going to be fighting each other for toys. It’s probably not like it was before.”
Ellsworth residents Colby and Sydney, who declined to give their last names, were also waiting outside Target and were also Black Friday newbies — though they were there specifically to get a gaming console.
“I’m specifically here for an XBox Series X. Not even the deal, just to buy one, since they sell out all the time,” he said. “I’ve never really cared about Black Friday, honestly.”
Eremita said that Walmart was even getting ahead of potential lines by handing out tickets for hot items like TVs and gaming consoles that would allow the shopper to come back anytime on Friday to pick up their item.
As manager of the Comfort Inn on Hogan Road, Eremita has a unique perspective on the average Bangor retail shopper. Typically, on Thanksgiving night her hotel would be packed with Canadians preparing to shop on Friday morning. This year, not only was it not full — there were no restaurants open at the mall area on Thursday night for Canadians to eat at.
The Bangor Mall itself has a large number of vacancies and isn’t the destination it once was. With online shopping, Maritimes residents can easily buy things without having to trek west to the Queen City — if they don’t bypass Bangor altogether.
“Our numbers have really dropped off. I think people are bypassing Bangor to go to Portland or to Freeport, Kittery, North Conway and all the outlets,” she said. “Some people use Bangor as a home base to go to those places. They feel like Bangor shopping isn’t worth it anymore.”
Eremita said she’s sad as both a lover of Black Friday and as a part of the mall area business community to see what was once a major money-making day for the area decline.
“I hope it’s not going away, but it might be. I really enjoy the fun of it. It’s like a sport, hunting for the best deals,” she said. “And that’s really sad for Bangor, because a huge part of our economy has been the retail part and the mall area.”