Texoma merchants vie for Black Friday business - KTEN.com - Texoma news, weather and sports

SHERMAN, Texas -- With online shopping growing in popularity, traditional brick-and-mortar stores are thinking outside the box to attract Black Friday customers like Marilynn Sebade.

"We're looking for Christmas items for my kids, and at this age, they like to pick stuff out," she said. 

"We have seen that customers want to shop when they want to shop," said  Terry Anderson, manager of the JCPenney store at Sherman Town Center. "So whether its 3 a.m. in the morning, if it's on Thursday at 2 o' clock, or on Saturday at 8 a.m. because they don't want to have the rush, but they still want to be able to get those deals."

For the 2018 holiday shopping season, stores like JCPenney and Target have been working to prove they can counter online competition with something new of their own.

"We introduced a new mobile checkout system, which kind of helps them get through the line a little bit faster," Anderson said.

It seems to be working.

"The checkout lines don't seem to be as crazy as normal," Marily Sebade said. 

But even with new techniques and discounted deals, shopper Reginald Scott said his opinion on Black Friday will remain the same.

"You got some people that like to get out and do this, some that would rather not fight the clutter, the traffic," he said. "Some just don't care."