The last time Naupaka Hanchett braved the Black Friday shopping crowds in Honolulu, she walked away with a black eye and wearing only one slipper after jockeying for the last deeply discounted wireless router on a store shelf.
She didn’t get it.
She lost out to a determined male shopper — “he was much stronger” — who inadvertently struck her with an elbow in the tussle for the router.
That was five years ago.
“This is a lot more civilized,” Hanchett said Thursday afternoon as she sat in line, relaxed and waiting for the Target at Ala Moana Center to open.
She, mother Roslyn Hanchett, 53, and her nephew, Kingston Nahinu-Chun, 6, who was tucked in a blue wagon playing on an iPad, waited for the doors to open at 6 p.m. so they could make a beeline to the electronics and toy sections.
Hanchett was hoping to score several Apple watches for $179 each, about $70 off the regular price.
The Makiki residents — the fourth group in the Target line, which grew to hundreds just before the opening — were among the throngs of consumers Thursday who decided they would rather be out shopping than partaking in a Thanksgiving dinner at home.
Like many others hitting the store aisles Thursday, the Hanchetts have altered their holiday tradition to make room for bargain hunting. Their family had a large Thanksgiving lunch — complete with turkey, ham, stuffing and other holiday dishes — before the pair and her nephew headed to the mall.
Hanchett’s boyfriend, Kyle Brady, was in line at Best Buy in Iwilei.
“It’s the thrill of the find,” Hanchett said in explaining why each year she and her mother join the crowds in search of holiday deals.
“I provide the credit card,” Roslyn Hanchett quipped in describing her role.
The previous four years, mother and daughter did their Black Friday shopping in Las Vegas, where Hanchett said the lines are shorter or nonexistent and the vibe not as frantic. “It’s much more calm there.”
They couldn’t go this year because of their work schedules at the U.S. Postal Service.
‘It’s kind of exciting’
Retailers report that the pace of Black Friday shopping is not as harried as in the past because the sales are spread over longer periods and online shopping continues to be popular.
Janine Dalo, 25, and mother Susan Dalo, 56, joined the crowd at Ala Moana after enjoying a Thanksgiving lunch at their Kalihi home.
Janine Dalo is a regular Black Friday shopper, though she missed last year because of the birth of her son.
This year she’s not looking for anything in particular.
“Whatever we see that we like, we’ll buy,” she said.
Aaron Melero, 19, a member of the Army, was on his first solo Black Friday outing.
He usually goes with his family in California, but now that he’s stationed at Schofield Barracks, he decided to take the bus into town Thursday to try his hand.
He was just behind the Hanchetts in the Target line.
Melero came with multiple bags, hoping to fill them with small items — kitchen appliances and electronics were on his list — that he could carry on the bus.
“It’s kind of exciting,” he said of going solo. “It’s kind of like competing with different people. Everybody has the same goal.”
At Best Buy in Iwilei, Sean Oliver, general manager, said the store was packed at about 6:30 p.m. The doors opened 90 minutes earlier.
Though it was too soon to say how sales would compare with a year ago, he said the crowd was just as large.
“We are super busy,” Oliver said. “It’s amazing.”
Hatchett said waiting in line has become part of her holiday tradition.
By the time Target’s doors opened, she had waited just over two hours.
But that was a breeze compared with her ordeal Wednesday to purchase eight pies — four custard, two pumpkin and two custard-pumpkin — at Lee’s Bakery in Chinatown.
She waited five hours in line for that.
