By Siddharth Cavale and Ananya Mariam Rajesh
(Reuters) – Target (NYSE:TGT)’s exclusive, in-store launch of Taylor Swift’s new Eras Tour book on Black Friday paid off early with lines outside some of the stores.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, most images that shoppers shared of Target’s shelves for the Eras Tour book were empty as of 7:30 a.m. ET.
Black Friday has become an important shopping day with customers willing to wait outside as early as an hour before stores open at 6 a.m. to grab items before they run out of stock.
Hoping to buck a long stretch of slowing sales at Target stores – with penny-pinched shoppers making purchases at rival retailers – Target teamed up with Swift to build on the fan momentum she experienced following her Eras Tour concerts.
Around 20 people queued up outside at a Target store in New Jersey as early as 5 a.m. in freezing temperatures on Black Friday, with most of them there to snap up Swift’s exclusive merchandise being offered only at the big-box retailer.
Parents of teenage daughters and youngsters in their late 20’s were up and about to buy Swift’s Eras Tour book priced at $39.99 at Target, which is also making available a vinyl album and CD version of “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” for the first time.
Twenty-eight-year old Amy Webb, too, was in line to get her hands on the Eras Tour book. “I usually don’t buy anything during the holiday season, but wanted to get my hands on this before it sells out,” she said, adding that this was her first time standing outside a store on Black Friday.
Users on X shared pictures of long queues to grab Swift’s book and album. “Best black Friday ever, been here since 3:30 a.m.,” said Jennifer Angerl, a user on X.
“Goods have been secured,” X-user Michael Jones-Alarcon said on the social media platform.
In May, Swift’s latest Tortured Poets album was released just two weeks before the end of Target’s first quarter and was enough to buoy the retailer’s entertainment business. Target, which has nearly 2,000 stores in the U.S., said then the entertainment category grew high-single-digits in the first quarter, benefiting from exclusive offers of Swift’s latest release.
To boost sales during the holiday season, which is shorter than in previous years with only 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the big-box retailer will begin to offer the Eras Tour book and vinyl and CD version of her Tortured Poets album on its app and website beginning Saturday.
“That’s the only reason I am here, we don’t want to go online and see that it is sold (out),” said a 35-year old Marriott Hotel employee Adrian Antuna, who was waiting to get his hands on the Eras Tour book and a couple of the Tortured Poets Department vinyl albums.