ROANOKE, Va. – “I’ve only been here for an hour, hour and a half, but I think there’s been a few people here for a few hours now," Justin Hayth said as he waited in line outside Target at Valley View Mall in Roanoke.
He was one of about two dozen people in line around 4 p.m.
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“I need to get a Playstation. I know there’s good deals on televisions,” Hayth said.
By the time Target opened at 5 p.m., the line to get in stretched down to the Petco.
“We’ve got to get three giant teddy bears," said Alicia Talbott as she waited in line. "They don’t have them online. It’s in-store only.”
Down at Best Buy, about two dozen people were also waiting in line around 4 p.m.
“I’m getting a TV for a friend. He might give it away as a gift, but it was a good deal," Brent Baker said, sitting in a folding chair trying to stay warm as he waited for the store to open.
He was hoping to get in and out of the store quickly.
“I learned last time...you get inside and you go straight and redeem your ticket. Otherwise, the line goes from the front of the store to the back of the store," Baker said.
According to the National Retail Federation, 114.9 million people are expected to shop on Black Friday in 2019.
Forty seven percent of people who plan to shop will be getting their holiday deals in-store.
Forty one percent will shop online.
Holiday sales during November and December are expected to be up about 4 percent from 2018, potentially totaling over $730 billion.