Shoppers pack South Coast Plaza in search of deals on Black Friday

Sitting on a bench near Bloomingdale’s at South Coast Plaza, Sara Dobsen tilted her head back and propped her feet up on an array of shopping bags — each stuffed to the brim with new purchases.

“Sometimes you just need a bit of a breather, you know?” the Tustin resident said with a laugh Friday.

She, like swarms of others, turned out to the Costa Mesa shopping center to take advantage of the specials offered during the annual mercantile madness that is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which semi-officially marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season.

“It’s a tradition at this point,” Dobsen said. “It’s just part of celebrating the holidays.”

On Friday, hefty crowds jammed every part of South Coast Plaza, craning their necks to scrutinize signs advertising discounts and other enticements or poring over store directories to see where to head next.

Outside of Nordstrom, three women in identical red Christmas-themed sweaters bustled through with armfuls of shopping bags. Near Macy’s, a man chatted on his cellphone as he pushed a stroller repurposed as a shopping cart.

Others feverishly scanned their phones, perhaps checking a new web page showcasing bargains offered by retailers and restaurants throughout South Coast Plaza for what the center dubbed “Fabulous Friday.”

For some, Black Friday is a chance to snag sought-after items at deep discounts. For others, going shopping with family or friends is as much a part of Thanksgiving week as turkey on the table and football on TV.

Whatever the reason, people turn out in droves. All told, an estimated 164 million are planning to shop or are considering shopping at some point between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday a few days later, according to a survey released this month by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics.

Of those, about 115 million were expected to shop on Black Friday.

South Coast Plaza was expecting to see about four times as many patrons on Black Friday as on a typical Friday, said Debra Gunn Downing, the center’s executive director of marketing.

“The day after Thanksgiving at South Coast Plaza traditionally has been a day of people coming for the ambience and the experience — even, I would say, as much as for the discounts,” she said Friday.

That’s true, she said, even though some retailers have taken to opening and offering discounts on Thanksgiving itself, diverting some of the typical Black Friday traffic.

So far, Downing said, overall gross sales for South Coast Plaza are running about 8% ahead of last year. She expects the trend to continue through the holidays.

“The economy is very strong,” she said. “Consumer confidence is high, the employment rate is near an all-time high, and all of those things bode well for the holiday season for us.”

luke.money@latimes.com

Twitter @LukeMMoney