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The cool part of social media is, you never know the responses you will get, the bad part of social media is, you never know what responses you will get. But, with the state of the state being what it is, reaching out to folks on social media seemed the right play, even with the trolls. Thankfully, there were many quality responses, the only edits that were made from the responses were spelling or grammatical corrections, any thing in [ ] is an edit for clarification. Now that you know those minor details, lets get to it!

One commentor pointed us to restaurateur’s post regarding the Mall of America. From the pictures shared on that post and the comments on that thread, MoA was the normal Black Friday chaos. People were acting as if it were previous Black Fridays, few using masks, hardly any social distancing, large groups gathered in the common spaces and nothing being sanitized in the common areas. Individual stores at MoA were a bit better according to the post, but not nearly as good as they should have been. The point of the post was how hypocritical it was in shutting down bars and restaurants yet allowing this to happen. Restaurants follow strict guidelines for sanitation under normal circumstances and that has been ramped up significantly under the new COVID guidelines. At the time of this writing, there were over 1,500 comments on the post, most in support of keeping restaurants and bars open.

Minda S works for JC Penny and had this to say, “I fulfilled a lot of Buy online Pickup in Store orders! Having the black Friday deals running throughout the month certainly helped us and probably other retailers with not having incredibly crowded stores. People were out. When we opened at 5 a.m. we only had a handful of customers. Far different from last year. Every customer I saw had masks.

Lines were definitely not around the store like last year. But shoppers in line were six feet apart. We reconfigured some of our registers to create more space between customers. For the most part, People knew what they were looking for so were on the go keeping their distance from others. We clean per CDC guidelines.”

Speaking of Penny’s, Becky M paid them and other stores a visit. “Yes, the only place I didn’t like was Old Navy in Woodbury – very minimal social distances and overcrowded. Every place else (Home Depot – Eagan, outlet mall in Eagan, JCPenney / Woodbury) was great and even slower than what I had expected. The cashier at Penny’s said it had been slow all morning and I actually appreciated the additional customer service from B& BW and Home Depot this morning. So much better than the typical rude, impatient, pushy experience I have had on some other Black Fridays,” she said.

Allison S said, “My mom and I went out to a few stores. We were really surprised and pleased with the system at Menards.”

Linda S was surprised at the lack of shoppers, “Bath and body had people outside waiting to get in. Dicks had a line at check but moved quickly and everyone kept their distance. They also have employees going thru the line collecting hangers and taking off security tags before you got to the checkout counter. Surprisingly not many people out today.”

Tonya L took advantage of ordering online for some items and still went to the stores for others. “No lines, fully stocked, stores not crowded at all, front row parking. Lots of social distancing, hand sanitizer at entrances and throughout the store. Found everything I went for and more. Actually, waited longer for the items I ordered Thursday online for curbside pickup,” she said.

Renae B witnessed some issues at the Eagan outlet mall. “I went to the Eagan Outlet mall after I got off work (was there around 8:15pm, they close at 9pm) and everybody had Adidas bags and there were quite a few groups, even during closing time. People were definitely not social distancing. I was in a store where an employee asked a group of young men to pull their masks over their noses and mouths,” she stated.

Debbie B found one of the few lines reported for the day, “We tried going to Oakdale Best Buy at 10 am. They [were] counting how many went in. There was a line to get in. We decided not to wait.”

Brian J made a quick, successful Menards run, “I went to Menards around 10 or 11 and it wasn’t crazy at all. Looked like a typical weekend pre-pandemic. Everything that I wanted was in stock, so I considered that a win.”

Theresa R zipped up to Oakdale, “We went to Fleet Farm in Oakdale around 10am. It was busy but not like crazy Black Fridays in the past.”

Thomas U thought it was a quiet day of shopping. “Target and Walmart both seemed more dead than a ‘normal’ shopping day. I would guess because they really didn’t have much for deals that they weren’t already offering earlier in the week,” he said.

Stacy M seemed pleased with her experiences. “Kohls Cottage Grove was much slower, staff very helpful while maintaining distance and very clean everywhere. Selection was also good in store,” she said.

Just when you thought the bowling alleys are closed, Ruth S comes through! “Hobby Lobby West St. Paul 10am…..you could have rolled bowling balls down the aisles and never hit anyone. Counted 11 people in the store including three workers I saw,” she said. But she would not score many points with no pins to knock over.

Thanks to all the folks online that took time out of their day to help with this story. As witnessed by many folks, the majority of the stores were doing everything they could to help shoppers feel safe. This was evident still when The Journal went exploring. Both Walmart in Hastings and Cottage Grove still had some of their deals in the aisles Friday afternoon. As you walked the aisles, you could also see the steps that were being taken to protect everyone in the store. Signs and stickers everywhere reminding people to stay six feet apart and to mask up. Many hand sanitizing stations around the stores and employees properly wearing masks. We tried to interview managers from both Walmart locations, but due to their corporate policies, they could not give us any official statement on the things they were doing in store to protect shoppers and staff or how the day went. We were referred to their media relations 800 line which then referred us to a website which then brough us to a form to fill out which resulted in a few business days wait. All that resulted in us being unable to reach Walmart for any kind of official comment before deadline.

Target in Cottage Grove seemed to go a few steps further to protect everyone and they were certainly more accommodating to our request for information. Front End Lead Ronnie gave us the rundown of the extra precautions they used when they prepped on Wednesday. They added shields behind the cashiers to supplement the ones already in front of them, made sure to sanitize every possible surface they could and worked out a plan with line leaders just to name a few. The line leader was an employee at the entrance to the cash registers that helped keep social distancing and guiding folks to the open registers.

Previous years, there have been lines outside of Target well in advance of them opening their doors, so how did the morning go? “Honestly, it went swimmingly. We’ve spread out all of our deals throughout the month, so it’s been super steady. There hasn’t been a line, so not as many angry guests. Everyone has been super happy with it and it’s been COVID friendly as well,” Ronnie said.

“Every register has [cleaning supplies], so every time they are done with a guest, they clean the registers, they clean the belt, the shelves. They clean everything after every guest,” Ronnie added.

How about the typical, random, unruly customer? Did they have any issues? “Honestly, it’s been amazing,” Ronnie said. “I’ve been here for a year and this is 100 times better than last year.”

Perhaps COVID will knock out one good thing this year, perhaps we will see that we do not have to resort to being rude, selfish, jerks to shop for the holidays on one day for the best deals. Retailers all over have adjusted to be running black Friday type deals the entire month of November. Does Ronnie think this will work going forward?

“I would love that! It’s not as stressful, we don’t have to worry about as many guests being disappointed that they have to wait in line for so long. I think everyone can get their shopping done spread out throughout the month, so I think it’s really helpful. I hope, I HOPE it will last. You know, every year is so different, it may be even better next year,” she concluded.

We hope so too, Ronnie.