{"id":63652,"date":"2025-11-28T17:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T17:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/63652\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T17:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T17:34:08","slug":"thousands-crowd-into-central-florida-stores-seeking-black-friday-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/63652\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands crowd into Central Florida stores seeking Black Friday deals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Thousands crowded into stores across Central Florida on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clickorlando.com\/topic\/Black_Friday\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.clickorlando.com\/topic\/Black_Friday\/\">Black Friday<\/a> as a record number of shoppers are expected for the weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">At the Orlando International Premium Outlets, people began lining up long before the pre-dawn opening for most stores.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cWe actually came from Gainesville and left at 12 a.m., so we were excited,\u201d Maitrey Phatak said. \u201cI think it\u2019s just getting up early, being with friends, and getting good deals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">According to the National Retail Federation, 186.9 million people were projected to shop for the holiday weekend in the U.S., an increase of 3.5 million from last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">This year could mark the biggest turnout ever for the five-day span from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cLast year was not as busy, so I think the crowds are coming back finally after COVID,\u201d a shopper said. \u201cYou know, we\u2019re getting back out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">[VIDEO BELOW: Orlando\u2019s H Mart sees big shopping surge]<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The federation also estimated that average spending on gifts and holiday items would reach $890 per person. Among a poll of 8,427 people, nearly two-thirds said they would wait for Thanksgiving weekend deals, which was up from 59% in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cIt means a lot because you\u2019re struggling to feed your family,\u201d Kasandra Cole said. \u201cEverything saved makes a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The Orlando International Premium Outlets extended its hours for holiday shopping. For more details, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.premiumoutlets.com\/outlet\/orlando-international\/hours\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.premiumoutlets.com\/outlet\/orlando-international\/hours\">visit this website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kiwhtN\">Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2025 by WKMG ClickOrlando &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Thousands crowded into stores across Central Florida on Black Friday as a record number of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[19163,28,1186,2159,139,141,140,5371],"class_list":{"0":"post-63652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-black-friday","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-holidays","11":"tag-money","12":"tag-orlando","13":"tag-orlando-headlines","14":"tag-orlando-news","15":"tag-shopping"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}