AUBURN — The Black Friday creep is having an impact here, with more stores opening earlier. Meanwhile experts are predicting consumers will spend 4.1 percent more this year than last.

For the first time Kmart is opening at midnight on Black Friday, joining Walmart, Best Buy and Kohl’s, which opened at midnight last year instead of what was the traditional 5 a.m.

Maine’s blue law forbids stores with more than 5,000 square feet from opening on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. L.L. Bean is exempt. The same law used to forbid Sunday shopping until it was repealed in referendum.

The Auburn Kmart has never opened at midnight on Black Friday, said store manager Joyce Beane. “Everybody’s pumped to do it,” she said. “We had a lot of people volunteer to work extra this week.”

In other states many stores are opening at 8 p.m. Thanksgiving, and some will be open during Thanksgiving day. That’s prompted some push back by workers and shoppers, who want the day to remain a time for family, said University of Maine economics professor Jim McConnon.

The Auburn Kmart will hold two Black Friday openings, one at midnight which will run until 3 a.m. The store will then close and re-open at 5 a.m. “This week is the reason for retail,” Beane said.

Maine is one of only three states that forbids big-store shopping on Thanksgiving, said Curtis Picard of the Maine Retailers Association. The other two are Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Black Friday openings have “been getting earlier for two years in a row,” Picard said. Retailers are responding to consumer demand, and the fact that consumers can shop 24/7 online.

Both he and University of Maine’s McConnon predict a good shopping season for consumers and retailers.

First, Thanksgiving’s gift to retailers this year is as many shopping days between now and Christmas as the calendar allows: 32. In those 32 days are five weekends, giving workers plenty of time to shop.

For many stores the Christmas season is what puts them in the black for the year, generating between 25 to 40 percent of their annual sales.

“How consumers are feeling about spending is the million-dollar question,” McConnon said. But he said there has been slowly improving conditions.

Maine consumer sales for January-September this year rose 4.4 percent compared to last. Maine’s personal income is up 3 percent, wages and salaries are up 1.3 percent in the first half of this year compared to the first half of 2011, McConnon said.

Still, like last year Maine unemployment is high, 7.4 percent, with 52,700 Mainers unemployed. Energy costs are high, and there’s the looming federal fiscal cliff. If Congress doesn’t make adjustments by Jan. 1, there’ll be higher taxes for everybody, McConnon said. “Consumers are watching.”

But the positive signs are “indicating consumer spending will increase over last year.” Retailers are anxious to generate sales. “What we’re going to see is a lot of deals out there starting Friday through Christmas,” McConnon predicted.

Consumers are paying more attention to the third year of the “Small Business Saturday,” which on Nov. 24 is a day that promotes local businesses and Maine-made products, he said.

Today’s Sun Journal newspaper will hold so many sales supplements, 34, that the paper will weigh three pounds, said Jim Costello Jr., vice president of operations for Sun Media.

“It’s a big package; 34 inserts is the most we’ve ever had,” Costello said. “I take that as a good sign that we’ve got more advertisers, an indication of some strength in the economy.”

The Sun Journal moved up deadlines Wednesday night by three hours to get the paper out and delivered on time, “and to get our people out earlier to enjoy Thanksgiving,” Costello said.

With the economy picking up, there is some concern about an onslaught of shoppers.

To ensure safety when doors open and consumers rush to get deals, Auburn police have contacted major retailers and reviewed the stores’ crowd control plans, said Deputy Chief Jason Moen.

Walmart has hired four officers for crowd control, Best Buy has hired two. Plus, “our support services officer will be monitoring traffic movement in the retail district during anticipated peak times,” Moen said.

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

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