West Virginia malls gear up for Christmas holiday shopping uptick after a busy Black Friday – WV MetroNews

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — After a busy Thanksgiving and Black Friday holiday shopping period, malls around the state only expect the uptick to continue now for nearly a week until Christmas.

Grand Central Mall, which serves the Vienna-Parkersburg area of the state is just one of the major malls who have been welcoming a steady stream of holiday shoppers this year, according to the mall’s General Manager Jody Hopkins.

He said the wave of shoppers started in early November this year and are expected to be coming in until Christmas getting last minute gift items.

Hopkins said a lot of retailers started Black Friday sales two to three weeks earlier this year, so they weren’t really sure how that was going to go, but it ended up exceeding expectations.

“When we opened on Black Friday, it was crazy,” he said. “A lot of our retailers said their sales volumes are exceeding levels of pre-Covid,” Hopkins said.

Hopkins said also with Thanksgiving falling later in the month this year, this has created five less shopping days between Black Friday and Christmas. He said this has certainly had an impact on the volume of shoppers as well.

“I think that has kind of compressed the time for people to shop and everything, so it’s just kind of like it has increased the urgency, people are here now, people know they need to get their shopping done, so it’s definitely an increase over the past few years and it’s looking like it’s going to continue to be that way,” he said.

Huntington Mall Marketing Director Margi Valdez said these changes have impacted traffic at the busiest mall in the state as well.

She agreed, the shorter window of holiday shopping time this year created more of that sense of urgency.

“I think people are excited about shopping for Christmas and they don’t have as much time and a lot of people don’t start until Thanksgiving, and with it being so late this year it’s a shorter period of time before Santa gets here,” Valdez said.

Valdez also agreed however, that they are starting to see a revitalization of holiday shopping traffic at pre-Covid levels.

She said the return of normal mall operation hours seems to be the main reason behind this.

“Of course, our traffic right after everything was lifted where we had the altered hours and the shorter hours, a lot of stores were still keeping their shorter hours, but now everything is staying open,” she said.

Hopkins said in addition, the Grand Central Mall owes much of its holiday shopping uptick this year to the increase in the number of retailers at the mall.

He said the mall has about 80 retailers and with the new additions, they are really set up for success this holiday shopping season.

“For every gift-giving need I think we have it covered,” he said. “We’ve expanded our jewelry sections I think by opening Pandora just a few months ago, we have a lot more kids and young adult merchandise with Miniso and FYE.”

Hopkins said another store in the mall, Cardinal Market, was voted the best place in West Virginia to buy locally-made gifts for the third year in a row by West Virginia Living Magazine.

Valdez said they have also had a lot of holiday shopping success at the Huntington Mall by making it more into an entire experience by providing entertainment and special shopping perks throughout the holiday season.

She said this year, they have multiple area nonprofits set up providing gift wrapping services for donations at their community booths. Valdez said this service will add some convenience to peoples’ holiday shopping experience.

“I feel a lot of times, you know, people want to present the most beautifully-wrapped presents but they just don’t have the time, or sometimes it takes a sort of skill that they may not have because they want it to look great, so we’ve got these really great nonprofit groups set up to wrap presents,” Valdez said.

Both Valdez and Hopkins expect to keep the momentum going all the way up to Christmas.

Hopkins said he expects shopper traffic to only increase until then.

“So, if history is anything to compare against, it will continue to get busy and the weekend before Christmas which I think is the 21st, 22nd, those are going to be probably the busiest days of this year,” said Hopkins.

The Huntington Mall will be host to a fashion show this weekend and the weekend after, on Saturday, Dec. 21 they will host their annual Super Saturday Shenanigans where they will open a little bit earlier for people to have extra time shopping, as well as play games and potentially win prizes.

Santa Clause will be available for pictures both at the Huntington Mall and Grand Central Mall until Christmas Eve.