Anchorage Daily News

WASILLA -- A shaky economy was not enough last week to keep shoppers away from stores offering cut-rate icehouses, deals on baking goods and the hope of free gift cards.

Store managers around Wasilla reported Friday's sales were better than they hoped for, and looked to be a few percentage points above last year's post-Thanksgiving Day sale mark.

Aisles at Sears were still full of shoppers after 1 p.m., though store manager Jodel Carlson said it was downright slow compared to 5 a.m., when about 250 people were lined up, waiting to get in the door.

Carlson, like several other store managers in Wasilla on Friday, was grinning with pleasure at the turnout. She said she had worried the shaky economy would lead people to sleep in and skip shopping.

"People have been out in crowds -- it's been an awesome year," she said.

Sportsman's Warehouse opened at 6 a.m., an hour after some stores did Friday morning. Store manager Steve McVeigh said about 50 people were in line when the doors swung open.

The pace was not as frantic as at many other stores, but McVeigh said that's likely because the sales prices were good all day long, not just a four- or five-hour window.

"That feeds the frenzy," McVeigh said.

He said he thought Black Friday sales would likely top last year's mark by a few percentage points, even though the company was still surfing a wave of novelty last year after only having opened on Nov. 3.

McVeigh said icehouses, Dutch ovens and clothing were hot buys, with the store selling out of its last icehouse by mid-morning.

Across the street at Allen and Petersen, Silpat baking sheets, popular nonstick reusable pan liners, were the hot item, store manager Jeneal McVaney said.

McVaney said customers were lined up from her doorway down to the JoAnn Fabrics store about half a football field away, waiting to get in at 5 a.m.

By 6:30 a.m., she estimated at least 300 shoppers had come through the doors. Her measuring stick was the store Christmas tree, decorated with 300 gift cards ranging in value from $10 to $500.

TOPS LAST YEAR

That beats last year, when the same number of cards had been snatched up by 6:45 a.m., she said, and tops 2006, when gift cards were still on the tree at 8:30 a.m.

Not every shopper was paying retail prices Friday. The Wasilla Salvation Army parking lot was packed with cars and dozens were inside testing the firmness of couches and debating the features of electronic equipment or browsing racks of sweaters and blouses.

Salvation Army spokeswoman Jenni Ragland said sales are up across the board for the thrift store.

Income from the stores pays for the Salvation Army adult rehabilitation program in which men from around the state stay in an Anchorage-based residential treatment program for six to nine months to help them establish a routine for sober daily living.

For the past two years, Salvation Army has timed its monthly 50-percent off sale to coincide with Black Friday. This year, whether driven by the economy or by word-of-mouth, sales soared, Ragland said.

At Wasilla, the store brought in $5,156, double last year's tally, she said. The tally at the group's stores statewide was also up from about $14,000 last year to $19,500 this year.

Wasilla chief financial officer Cheryl Deariso said she wouldn't know until late December when city sales tax receipts for November come in whether the shopping day was better or worse than past years.

Deariso said she's unable to pinpoint sale activity for Black Friday because city businesses turn in their sales taxes on a monthly, not daily, basis.

WASILLA AVOIDS BAD ECONOMY

But sales taxes typically rise to yearly highs in November and December.

In 2007, the monthly average was around $720,000 in sales tax income, but November shot up to $1 million and December nearly reached $1.1 million.

"So far the (poor) economy hasn't really hit Wasilla yet," Deariso said.

Not everyone was participating in the feast of consumerism Friday.

Mark Masteller, director of the Alaska Center for Appropriate Technology, spent his day at the ice rink watching hockey, far away from the busy aisles.

He sent out an e-mail to his mailing list reminding them of the anti-shopping holiday, Buy Nothing Day.

Buy Nothing Day, according to online encyclopedia Wikipedia, was organized in Vancouver in 1992 by graphic artist and activist Ted Dave, who picked the Friday following Thanksgiving Day because it typically represented the first day of the holiday shopping season.

Promoted by Canada-based magazine Adbusters, the holiday now has an international following.

Masteller said it's hard to gauge how many people participate in Buy Nothing Day.

But it's a holiday he and several of his friends partake in as a form of protest.

"The main background of this was simply the consumerism -- the fact that we just buy so much stuff we don't necessarily need, and that stuff just ends up in a landfill before long," Masteller said.

"In times of economic recession, it's important to think about conscious consumerism."

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