The tradition of going to stores and getting the early special deals was alive and well at many locations Thursday night in Jefferson City.
Shoppers at many stores waited in line for several hours to get the best deals, primarily on electronic items.
"We had people in line starting at 2:30 a.m. and that's earlier than last year," said Jessika Phelps, store manager at Kohl's. "We opened at 6 p.m. Thursday night and won't close until midnight Friday."
Although it's a long work period for the employees, Phelps said it goes by fast.
"It's still our biggest shopping time of the year," she said. "We've been working toward this point and it's finally here so it's fun."
"If you ask me what my number one commodity is during the holidays, it's going to be the people working in the store," said Best Buy General Manager Mark Flanke. "We help people find the things that can allow them to preserve and share their memories with the devices we sell. You can find this stuff at a lot of places, but we help people get the items that would work best for their needs."
Flanke said the Jefferson City store sees customers come in from Linn, Fulton, some from Columbia and a lot from the Lake of the Ozarks.
The first people in line at Best Buy were there to get deals on big screen TV's.
"Everybody else has one of them big, giant TVs and I want one," said Cindy King of Jefferson City, who had been at the head of the line since 5 a.m. Thursday.
Donna Scheppers was also in line for a big TV at 5 a.m.
"To pay $150 for a 50-inch TV, you can't buy a 32-inch TV for that price," she said, "and ours just went out at our house so it's a good replacement."
Scheppers said they went out to an early holiday dinner so she didn't miss out on the Thanksgiving meal.
This year, there had been many postings on social media about some stores not opening on Thanksgiving to let their employees have a day off and to patron those stores instead of the ones opening early.
However, officials at the early-opening stores said they were responding to the wishes of their customers.
"Shopping over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend has become a much-anticipated tradition enjoyed with friends and family," said Kohl's spokeman Lyra O'Brien. "As many customers are eager to get a jump start on their shopping, we are opening our stores on Thanksgiving Day as a convenience to our customers who want to make Kohl's their first stop."
"Customers have clearly voted with their feet over the past three Thanksgivings as millions of people have followed up turkey with shopping," Best Buy spokesman Bianca Jones said. "It's become a ritual for some, and we are committed to being there for our customers whenever and wherever they want to shop."
With the holiday shopping season starting, Attorney General Chris Koster released tips for Missouri consumers to protect themselves.
• Make sure you understand return and exchange polices. Don't be surprised by restocking fees or deals with limited return or exchange windows. Always read the fine print. Hold on to documentation of your purchase and remember to request a gift receipt. A printed gift receipt protects the recipient from being denied the ability to return or exchange an item at the full value you paid for it. When shopping online, remember to retain a copy of the final confirmation.
• Make purchases with a credit card. Using a debit card to make a purchase online puts you in potential danger, as the card is linked directly to a personal account. You become vulnerable as scam artists will have full access to your balance and account. In contrast, with a credit card, you are spending a specific amount of loaned money from a bank. Every purchase has to be approved by the bank. If your credit card is used to make a fraudulent purchase without your permission, inform your bank and it will cancel the payment.
When buying gifts online, Koster recommends shopping with online retailers you know and trust. When entering credit card information, be sure that an "https" precedes the website in your browser's address bar as the "s" indicates use of a more secure protocol. Most if not all browsers will display a locked padlock icon when you navigate to a secure site.
Missouri consumers who suspect deceptive advertising or other unfair business practices should contact the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Hotline at 800-392-8222 or file a complaint online at ago.mo.gov/divisions/consumer/consumer-complaints.
NT Video:
Shoppers stream into Kohl's on Thanksgiving Day (time lapse)